The bar chart illustrates the total number of minutes, in billions, of telephone calls in Australia from 2001 to 2008, divided into three categories: local, national and international, and mobile calls.
Overall, local calls remained the most popular throughout the period, although they reached a peak in 2005 before declining. In contrast, national and international calls, as well as mobile calls, showed steady growth, with mobiles increasing dramatically.
In detail, local calls rose from 72 billion minutes in 2001 to 90 billion in 2005, before falling back to the initial figure of 72 billion by 2008. National and international calls started at 38 billion minutes in 2001 and grew consistently to reach 61 billion in 2008.
Mobile calls had by far the lowest figures at the beginning, with just 2 billion minutes in 2001. However, their usage expanded rapidly year by year, overtaking 30 billion by 2006 and reaching 46 billion in 2008.
Thus, while local calls declined in the later years, both mobiles and national/international calls experienced significant upward trends.