Higher GDP per capita correlates with more mobile subscriptions per GDP.
Comparing Mobile cellular subscriptions by country, per unit of GDP with Population - Est. & Proj. — Total Population - Both sexes, per unit of GDP across 181 countries, 2011–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.96
- Holding size constant
- +0.93
- Countries compared
- 181
- Period
- 2011–2025
What might link these
Wealthier countries may have better infrastructure and consumer demand for mobile services, even when normalized by GDP. However, the strong rank correlation could partly reflect broader economic development patterns rather than a direct link.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. Normalizing by GDP can create spurious relationships if the denominator is correlated with both indicators in similar ways.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.