The internet is accessed from all over the world – but which countries access it the most? It is not just the places with the largest numbers of people, or the richest countries either – some of the facts and figures may surprise you.
In total, across the globe, there are approximately 1.8 billion internet users, and 32 of the world’s countries each has over 10 million of these users. Ten countries in particular are cumulatively responsible for providing almost 1.2 billion of the 1.8 billion total, or in other words about 65 per cent.
Internet usage
Within the top 20 countries for internet usage, seven are Asian countries and five are European countries. Unsurprisingly, China and the USA are the top two countries in terms of total internet users, and within this, China has almost twice as many as the United States. As China is also largest in terms of actual population size this is to be expected, but there are some countries which use the internet a huge amount that may surprise you. For instance, the tenth country in the list is Nigeria – so while Africa is often considered to lag behind a little in technological advancements, this particular country is clearly up there in terms of internet usage. For more details on Africa and technology, see africaportal.org.
Internet penetration
Some countries, such as India, only have a small percentage of internet penetration – which means that the internet is only available to a fraction of their total population. However, because India has such a high total population, their 7% internet penetration equates to the fourth highest number of internet users as far as the list of countries is concerned. The countries with the highest percentage of internet penetration are the UK, South Korea and Germany, all with approximately 80% of the population with access to the web. Japan and the USA are pretty close to this figure. For more explanation of any of these figures, why not check out internetworldstats.com.
Just because a country has a large population it does not mean it will automatically have a high number of internet users. Although countries like the USA, UK, Germany and Japan are in a situation where almost everyone in the population has the opportunity to access the internet already, this is not the case everywhere. Places like the Philippines, Vietnam, India and Brazil have large populations but only a low percentage of that population currently accesses the web – this is sure to change in the coming years however. There is obviously still huge commercial potential in online ventures – if you are thinking of setting up online, why not look up a firm that can give you a helping hand, such as ma-design.biz – a Cheltenham Web Design company.
And although China and Russia already have a large number of total internet users, it is by no mean a high percentage of their total populations – there is still plenty of room to grow in these markets too.