Australia has more phones than people

Mobile phone subscriptions in this country outnumber the people who can use them, statistics from the ACMA show.

Mobile phone accounts in Australia outnumber Australians, as internet use surges. (AAP)

Mobile-phone accounts outnumber Australians, the latest report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) says.

In June this year, an estimated 31.01 million mobile phone accounts were active in Australia.

The average Australian had around 1.31 phone accounts in June.

That was revealing, Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association chief executive Chris Althaus said.

"That doesn’t mean every man, woman and child has got a phone, but it certainly means there’s a hell of a lot of us who have got more than one,” Mr Althaus said.

He said data volumes for phone use were increasing, however, he did not see an issue for the nation's mobile network infrastructure.

"Industry is building 4G networks as fast as they can," Mr Althaus said.

Fixed internet connections are still the most popular way to use bandwidth in Australia, despite the growth of mobile handsets.

During 2013-14, 65 terrabytes were downloaded using dial-up technology. 

Australians downloaded 1,034,959 terabytes of data (roughly 1,059,700,000 gigabytes, or 1,085,233,000,000 megabytes).