According to a Thursday-released report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), mobile and Internet consumption worldwide is clearly on the increase; with global mobile subscriptions having topped 6 billion at the end of last year.

With the ITU statistics revealing that there were over 6 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2011, it was also reported that one-third - that is, two billion - of the total mobile subscriptions were in China and India.

However, despite the significant number of mobile subscribers in two most populous countries, the ITU data showed that the massive size and enormous populations of these countries serve as the key obstacles in the way of ensuring the reach of broadband in rural areas as well as in those areas where there is urban sprawl.

Along with disclosing that the total number of global mobile subscriptions is nearly as much as the total population of the world, the ITU data also showed that South Korea was the top-spot country in so far as mobile and broadband adoption and availability is concerned; followed by Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. Interestingly, the US did not figure in the top 10 ranks in this arena.

Noting that over the course of the last one year, mobile-broadband services continued to grow at "40 percent globally and 78 percent in developing countries," the ITU said: "There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide."