Digital Around the World

A total of 5.35 billion people around the world were using the internet at the start of 2024, equivalent to 66.2 percent of the world’s total population.

Internet users continue to grow too, with the latest data indicating that the world’s connected population grew by 97 million users in the 12 months to January 2024.

At 1.8 percent, this year-on-year growth rate is somewhat slower than the growth rates that we saw during the middle of the last decade, but it’s still one of the faster rates we’ve seen over recent months.

Moreover, regular delays to the processing and publishing of research into internet adoption likely mean the real growth rate may be higher than these latest figures suggest.

Increases in global internet access mean that the number of people who remain “unconnected” to the internet has fallen to 2.74 billion, with the majority of these people living in Southern and Eastern Asia, and in Africa.

That means that there’s still plenty more work to do before the world reaches the goal of “universal access”, and the quality of people’s internet access remains an important consideration too.

However, current trends suggest that two-thirds of the world’s population should be online by the middle of 2024.

The vast majority of the world’s internet users – 96.5 percent – use a mobile phone to go online at least some of the time, and mobile phones now account for roughly 57.6 percent of our online time, as well as 58 percent of the world’s web traffic.

However, more than 6 in 10 internet users in the world’s larger economies still use laptops and desktops for at least some of their online activities.

Social media headlines

Social media use continues to grow too, with the total number of active social media user “identities” reaching 5.04 billion in January 2024. 

That’s equal to 62.3 percent of all the people on Earth, and suggests that 94.2 percent of internet users now use social media every month.

The number of active social media user identities around the world has increased by 5.6 percent in the past 12 months.

266 million new user identities joined social media between January 2023 and January 2024, equating to growth of almost 730,000 new users every day.

That means that social media grew at an average rate of 8.4 new users every single second in 2023.

Social media user growth has slowed since the rapid surges that we saw during Covid-19 lockdowns, but global adoption actually accelerated over the past three months compared with 2023 as a whole, with the global active user base increasing by 9.4 users per second between October 2023 and January 2024.

However, now that close to 80 percent of “eligible” audiences aged 13 and above already use at least one social media platform each month, we should expect more modest user growth from now on.

If you want to dig deeper into social media use by platform, you’ll find all of the latest stats here.

Global mobile adoption

Continued growth in mobile use is also helping to fuel increases in digital adoption and activity.

The latest data reveal that more than two-thirds of the world’s total population now uses a mobile phone, with the number of “unique” mobile users reaching 5.61 billion in January 2024.

Meanwhile, the number of cellular connections associated with smartphones continues to increase, and – with almost 7 billion smartphones now in use – the latest figures indicate that these handsets now account for roughly 85 percent of the mobile phones in use around the world today.

Explore the global digital landscape

Want to know more about the digital media landscape around the world?

Our Digital 2024 Global Overview Report is packed with 560+ slides containing all the latest need-to-know digital stats from around the world. 

You can read the full report in the embed below (see here if that’s not working for you), but click here if you’d like to dig deeper into all of the context, trends, and implications of these numbers.

Alternatively, scroll down this page to find a summary of all the key headlines.

Internet use around the world

• There are 5.35 billion internet users in the world today.

• The total number of internet users around the world grew by 97 million during the past 12 months.

• Globally, internet user numbers are growing at an annual rate of 1.8 percent, but year-on-year growth is even higher in many developing economies. Research delays also mean that growth for the most recent 12 to 18 months usually under-represents actual trends, so we anticipate that real adoption rates may be considerably higher than the latest data suggest.

• The average global internet user now spends 6 hours and 40 minutes online each day, with this figure slightly higher than the average for this time last year.

• Added together, the world’s internet users will spend more than 1.5 billion years of combined human existence using connected devices and services in 2024.

Essential social media stats

• There are 5.04 billion active social media user “identities” in the world today – equivalent to 62.3 percent of the world’s total population. However, note that these user “identities” may not represent unique individuals.

• The number of social media user identities around the world grew by 266 million in the 12 months to January 2024.

• Globally, social media users are growing at a rate of 5.6 percent per year, with the average social media user visiting or using 6.7 different social platforms every month.

• GWI reports that the average global user spends 2 hours 23 minutes on social media each day.

• Added together, the world spends more than 12 billion hours using social media every day.

Mobile stats from around the world

• There are 5.61 billion unique mobile phone users in the world today, according to the latest data from GSMA Intelligence.

• The total number of unique mobile users around the world grew by 138 million over the past 12 months.

• Unique mobile users are currently growing at a rate of 2.5 percent per year. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people have also upgraded from ‘feature’ phones to smartphones over the past 12 months.

• The latest data from Ericsson show that the number of mobile connections associated with smartphones has reached almost 7 billion, accounting for close to 85 percent of all the mobile phones in use around the world today [note that many people use more than one mobile phone].

• The number of smartphones in use is growing at an annual rate of 5.3 percent, with more than 350 million new smartphones coming into active use over the past 12 months.

Essential ecommerce stats

• 56.1 percent of internet users aged 16 to 64 buy something online every week, according to the latest data from GWI.

• More people now make purchases via mobile devices than via desktops and laptops, but computers are still a central part of people’s online shopping behaviours, especially across Northern America and Europe.

• The amount of money spent on online consumer goods purchases in 2023 reached US$3.15 trillion, with global ecommerce spend increasing by 9.7 percent versus 2022’s total [note that consumer goods do not include things like flights, which we detail elsewhere in the full report].

• Statista reports that the average ecommerce shopper around the world spends more than US$1,000 per year on online purchases of consumer goods.

Note: we update the numbers on this page on a regular basis, so if you’d like to link to a specific set of stats, you’d be safer linking to one of our ‘static’ reports – click here if you’d like some help finding the right one.

More global insights

You’ll find links to some of our latest reports below, but simply click here if you’d like to search our complete library of in-depth insights and trends.