More mobile subscriptions than people

There are 101.3 mobile phone subscriptions for every 100 people, official statistics say.

Between October and December last year, mobile phone subscriptions numbered 422,083, which means some people have more than one subscription, according to the National Statistics Office.

The subscriptions are put to good use too, as both local and outbound mobile phone traffic exceed those of the corresponding period in 2008.

Even figures for fixed telephony were up, after the time people spent on the phone talking to someone on the national network increased compared to the corresponding quarter last year by 7.1 per cent. The same statistics saw internet subscriptions rising by 8.1 per cent, meaning 78.2 per cent of Maltese households now have internet access.

The statistics also signal the death of dial-up connections. By last December, there were just 631 subscribers to the service. The majority now use a broadband connection, with an increase of 9,744 over the previous year.

Almost all households are subscribed to a television service, with 97.9 per cent of households having digital or analogue subscriptions. However, there was an increase of 31.4 per cent in the number of digital television subscriptions while those for analogue television dropped by 40.8 per cent.