Malta third for mobile phone, Internet and PCs in EU applicant countries

By Mario Schembri Wismayer

Mobile telephony has reached the saturation level of 64 per cent of the population, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. Mobile phones have, perhaps, become the most coveted gift of those comparatively few that still don’t have one. Between March 2001 and March 2002 an increase of 79.2 per cent was registered. This means that in one year the part of the population owning mobile phones had expanded from 36.1 to 64 per cent. Malta’s average is now close to the EU average of 72.4 per cent.

Internet subscriptions have now reached 15,157 and now represent 25.4 per cent of the total population. Both for mobile telephony and Internet Malta, places third in the EU applicant countries. For mobile phones, Malta follows hot on the footsteps of Slovenia and the Czech Republic. As far as Internet subscriptions go, Malta trails behind Estonia and Slovenia.

On the computer front, measuring the number of PCs per hundred people, Malta scored third highest, registering 23.1 per cent in 2001, following in the footsteps of Slovenia and Cyprus.

Satellite receivers registered have increased by 103.5 per cent in the twelve months leading to March 2002.