Cell Phones Present in Two Thirds of Canadian Households

Press Release - May 20, 2007

Cellular phones still trial landlines in terms of overall market size, but the number of Canadian wireless subscribers continues to grow steadily, and now includes two thirds of the country’s consumers, according to a recently released Statistics Canada survey.

“As of December 2006, about 90.5 per cent of households reported having a land line, while 66.8 per cent reported having at least one cellphone,” the federally funded agency revealed.

The western province of Alberta boasts the highest cell phone penetration with 80% of households possessing at least one of the wireless devices. New Brunswick and Quebec trail the pack with 57.5% and 57.9% of households, respectively.

About 5% of all survey respondents reported using a mobile phone exclusively, up just slightly from 4.8% at the end of 2005.