LONDON—The world continues its shift online, as the global digital population reached 4.8 billion as of third quarter 2020, which represents about 63% of the world’s total population, according to BuyShares.co.uk,
In 2010, the number of internet users worldwide was at 1.9 billion, per Statista and Internet World Stats data. By 2015 that grew 66% to 3.2 billion. As of last year, the global digital population was at 4.5 billion. With 297 million people getting access to the internet in the last 12 months, that number has now reached 4.8 billion.
Asia has the largest amount of internet users by region, with 2.5 billion, an increase of 61% over the last five years. In fact, one-third of all internet users come from either China (934 million) or India (697 million). Despite being first and second in total internet users, China and India also have the largest offline populations.
Europe is the second largest region with 727.8 million (a 20% increase). North America, meanwhile, has a 332.9 million digital population, a 6% increase from 2015. However, the U.S. is third in total internet users behind China and India, with 284 million.
The fastest growing region is African, which went from 313.2 million digital users in 2015 to more than 556 million per this latest report, a jump of 80%.
Global internet growth is only expected to continue, as Statista estimates that the global digital population will hit 5 billion within the next two years and that by 2025 the number will be nearly 5.6 billion.
More information is available on BuyShares.co.uk’s website.
