Mobile ownership
Based upon data published in October 2018 by the regular Le Commerce du Levant ‘Tableau de bord’, over an official population of less than 4 million people plus almost one million Syrian refugees, there are 4,439,455 mobile users (increase of 3.23 percent, in comparison with October 2017). For the 3/4G mobile Internet, there are 3,274,476 users. There is no reliable updated data on possible geographical and economic divides among users. Though a prolonged and direct observation of the context suggests that there are not major divides among users, but rural and remote areas of the country may have fewer users than other areas.
Lebanon is still considered a laggard country in terms of mobile diffusion, if compared to other Arab countries (only Iraq equals Lebanon with 81.19 percent of subscriptions in 2016). This is mainly due the already mentioned high cost of mobile telephony and to poor telecommunication infrastructure, especially in rural areas.
Overall, mobile phones are mainly use to communicate and use social networks, but also for news and entertainment (music, video, games, etc).