With many countries and companies working together to expand the internet's reach, the number of people using the internet has surged over the past year.
Since January 2018, the internet sees an average of more than one million people coming online for the first time each day.
That in average, is 1 million new internet users per day. In another perspective, that is one user every 11 seconds.
In the Digital 2019 report, the eighth annual report from Hootsuite and We Are Social that examines digital trends and social media use across 230 countries and territories, reveals that:
- There are 5.11 billion unique mobile users in the world, up 100 million (2 percent) in the past year.
- There are 4.39 billion internet users in 2019, an increase of 366 million (9 percent) versus January 2018.
- There are 3.48 billion social media users in 2019, with the worldwide total growing by 288 million (9 percent) since this time last year.
- There are 3.26 billion people using social media on mobile devices in January 2019: a year-on-year increase of more than 10 percent.
The most significant increase, came from countries with developing economies.
While some of these countries experience difficulties in creating and managing their internet infrastructures, they have in general made a lot of new people coming to the internet for the first time.
In India for example, its internet users have jumped by almost 100 million in the past 12 months, representing annual growth of more than 20 percent. Internet penetration in the South Asian country stands at roughly 41 percent. This is a huge improvement from the 31 percent the country experienced in the year before.
African nations dominate the list of countries with the fastest growing internet communities, with Western Sahara seeing the greatest year-on-year relative gains, with the reported number of internet users in the country increasing by almost five times since January 2018.
Five countries saw their internet populations double over the past 12 months, while nine countries experienced annual growth of 50 percent or more.
These developing countries are responsible for the big numbers, that comprise of more than a quarter of 2018's total global growth.
Overall, the Asia-Pacific region delivered 55 percent of the annual growth figure, with China adding another 50 million new users in the past year.
As for developed nations, they too experience growth.
In the U.S. for example, the country takes the third spot in the report's global ranking of absolute internet user growth. Despite already enjoying an internet penetration rate of 88 percent the year before, internet users in the U.S. grew by almost nine percent year-on-year, reaching a total of more than 310 million users in January 2019 (95 percent penetration).
These annual growth numbers are already impressive, but an even more striking picture emerges when seeing the fact at a bigger picture:
The number of internet users around the world has grown by more than 1.9 billion since since the 2014 reports, an increase of more than 75 percent in just five years.
2018's total of 4.39 billion global users is also more than double the 2.08 billion figure reported in the first Global Digital report back in January 2012. The Digital 2019 reports suggest that, while not sustainable, the internet is now growing at a rate of one billion new users every 2.7 years.
This is a huge reach and a big achievement for the web that turns 30 this 2019.
