Stacey RudolphAs we approach the world population day on July 11, Invesp has created an infographic on online population to give us a glimpse on just how much the internet world is swelling year over year. Today, a whopping 42% of the world population of 7.3 billion has access to internet. You can tell how far we have come if you recall that only 1% of the world population had the privilege of surfing the net in 1995.
Today, as always has been the case, the United States leads the rest of the world in terms of internet penetration with 84.2% of the U.S population accessing internet.
According to the InternetLiveStats, the rate of growth of global internet users has been unprecedented. The number of internet users hit the 1 billion mark in 2005. The 2 billion mark came 5 years later, 2010, and the 3 billion mark was crossed in 2014.
Although the growth curve might not be as steep as the one witnessed between 2005 and 2010, the number of internet users will continue to grow for years to come.
Focus on mobile devices and social media
One important thing that internet marketers and entrepreneurs should note is the growing trend of internet access via mobile devices. More than half of global internet users (52%) access the internet through their mobile devices—tablets and Smartphones. This will not stop there. By the year 2020, more than half of the world population will be expected to access the internet using their mobile devices. So if you are an online marketer or entrepreneur, you know where to build your business.
Another important lesson we can learn from these statistic is that the number of social media users has finally crossed the 2 billion mark and stands at 2.07 billion. This means that the global social media penetration has reached nearly 1 in 3 internet users (29%). Compare this to the 17% social media penetration that was recorded in 2011. 20% of the world population uses Facebook, making it the leading social media channel in the world.
Number of internet users by countries
China is the leading in terms of the total number of internet users (641 million) followed by the United States (271 million) the India (243 million). Others in top ten include Japan, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Nigeria, United Kingdom and France in that order.
Time spent on the internet—massive ecommerce opportunities
The average internet user spend nearly 4 hours and 25 minutes on internet every day and 2 hours and 25 minutes every day. This explains why worldwide web sales in 2015 was a record $ 1. 592 trillion.
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