Latest figures reveal that mobile phone penetration is at 114%. That is, for every 100 people in Ireland, there are 114 active mobile phones. And if you remove all the young children, elderly, and luddites who don’t have any mobiles, then the ratio of people to phones must be even higher.
It’s easy to understand. Lots of people have separate business and personal mobile phones, and others may subscribe to separate mobile services for different usage patterns.
Myself, I have three different mobile subscriptions that are in regular use, and various other unused (but activated) prepay SIM cards. This may seem like a lot, but you need to consider that I maintain somewhat of a dual telephony lifestyle – with active mobile numbers in both Ireland and the UK. And in addition to the two phones, I also have a mobile broadband subscription for my laptop – although I’m planning to cancel that soon, as I’m not really using it all that much.