UAE mobile users at record high

Nearly 212,000 new mobile phone users joined the UAE market in January to boost the total number of GSM subscribers to a record high of around 11.9 million at the end of January, official data showed on Tuesday. The increase over the previous month was coupled with a sharp drop in internet subscribers in the same period, with their number dipping by a whopping 563,000, the figures showed. At the end of January, the UAE had a mobile phone penetration rate of 149.1 per cent, one of the highest ratios in the world. The figures by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, which oversees the telecom sector in the second largest Arab economy, showed the number of internet users plummeted to 887,000 at the end of January from around 1.3 million at the end of December 2011. The report gave no explanation for the fall.