2015-05-18

Global Internet Population, Internet Penetration, Internet Users

graphic of worldwide internet population and penetration

Two major factors are shown in the graphic above: 1) internet penetration (%); 2) total internet population of each nation (indicated by the relative size of each nation on the map). For example, China already has the largest internet population in the world, but lower internet penetration than the US, which means more growth in the Chinese internet population is likely in the future. However, remember other correlations are applicable for the internet and domain name industry (click on map to enlarge).

Trends and Patterns:
  • The rise of Asia as the main contributor to the world’s internet population; 42% of the world’s internet users live in Asia.
  • China, India, and Japan together have more Internet users than Europe and North America combined.
  • Few of the world’s largest internet countries fall into the top category (>80%) of internet penetration (and indeed India falls into the lowest category, at <20% penetration). In other words, in all of the world’s largest internet nations, there is still substantial room for growth.
  • All but four of the countries with an internet penetration rate of over 80% are in Europe (Canada, New Zealand, Qatar, and South Korea being the exceptions).
  • Most Latin American countries now can count over 40% of their citizens as internet users. Because of this, Latin America as a whole now hosts almost as many internet users as the United States.
source: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, England (UK)

For more current data see: Number of Internet Users (2015) - Internet Live Stats


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