Internet usage is one of the most important requirements in today’s era. All the important work, transactions, communication, etc., are done with the help of the internet. Most people tend to start their mornings surfing the web.
Since the year 2018, every day, approximately 900,000 people have gone online for the first time. Currently, there are more than 5 billion active internet users around the globe.
After the pandemic hit the world, the number of internet users has increased tremendously, and most of the education, work, and other communications are done online.
In the following article, I have compiled all the important stats on internet usage and users. I have also included the stats related to internet usage for social media apps, mobile phones, etc.
Internet User Statistics For 2023 (Top picks)
Take a look at Internet statistics in a more detailed manner here.
- 5.07 billion people around the world are on the internet as of 2023.
- 63.5% of the world population has access to the internet.
- Thanks to accessibility to mobile phones, more than 170 million internet users grew in the time span of one year.
- Internet users are reported to increase at an annual rate of 3.5 percent.
- Less than 3 billion people are not connected to the internet in southern and eastern Asia and Africa.
- 92.1% of internet users use mobile phones to browse the internet.
- 60% of the world’s web traffic is from mobile phone users.
- More than two-thirds of global internet users use laptops and desktops for their online activities.
- As of January 2023, the global reach of social media has grown to 4.74 billion people.
- Between October 2021 and 2022, 190 million internet users joined social media.
General Internet User Statistics
The Internet is the most important facility for today’s world; there are many interesting facts that one must know about internet users. Let us take a look at some general stats related to internet users.
- There are 5.07 billion internet users in the world as of January 2023.
- Over 59.5% of the world’s population uses the internet.
- It is expected that there will be 27.1 billion networked devices in 2023.
- 46.8% of the global population had access to the internet in the year 2017. In the year 2021, the number of internet users was expected to reach 53.7%.
- Here is a table showing the growth of global internet users from 2014 to 2023:
| Year | Percentage of users |
| 2014 | 40.7% |
| 2015 | 43% |
| 2016 | 44.6% |
| 2017 | 46.8% |
| 2018 | 48.9% |
| 2019 | 50.8% |
| 2020 | 52.4% |
| 2021 | 53.7% |
| 2022 | 63.1% |
| 2023 | 63.1% |
- Google Chrome has the largest share among all browsers, which is 65.35% of the total market.
- Apple owns 19.6% of the market share of web browsers.
- Internet usage increased by 1355% from the beginning of the year 2000.
- Currently, there are 370.7 million domain names in the world that are registered.
- As the content management system, 34.5% of the websites prefer WordPress, which accounts for more than 127 million websites.
- In 2023, the number of emails sent and received per day is predicted to be 333.2 billion.
- In the year, 62.78% of the people reported that their primary browser was google chrome.
- The top 10 most visited sites in the year 2021 are Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Baidu, Wikipedia, Yandex, Yahoo, and XVideos.
- The average speed of a website in the United States was found to be 5-6 seconds in every industry.
- It was reported that every minute more than 1.5 million songs are streamed on the Spotify platform.
- 93% of American adults are reported to use the internet.
Here is the data on the number of adults that use the internet.
| Year | US adults |
| 2009 | 76% |
| 2010 | 76% |
| 2011 | 79% |
| 2012 | 83% |
| 2013 | 84% |
| 2014 | 84% |
| 2015 | 86% |
| 2016 | 88% |
| 2018 | 89% |
| 2019 | 90% |
| 2021 | 93% |
- In the year 2020, global internet traffic was reported to be 92 times greater than that in 2005.
- Every minute, Americans generate 3,138,420 GB of internet traffic.
- In the year 2021, 54.4% of the global traffic was reported to be generated from mobile devices as compared to the year 2009, when only 0.7% of the traffic was generated from mobile devices.
Source: Cisco, eMarketer, Statista, broadband search.
Global Internet Users
Globally, more than half of the people have a connection to internet services. Here are a few stats related to global internet users that you must know.
- 98% of the population in Northern Europe had access to the internet and it ranked first among the regions for the highest internet penetration rate.
- Western Europe had an internet usage rate of 94%.
- The global internet users reached 5.03 billion on July 2022.
- Asia has the largest internet base, with more than 2.7 billion internet users.
- Here is a table showing the penetration rate of internet in different regions as of 2023:
| Region | Internet Penetration Rate |
| Northern Europe | 98% |
| Western Europe | 94% |
| Northern America | 93% |
| Southern Europe | 88% |
| Eastern Europe | 87% |
| Southern America | 78% |
| Oceania | 72% |
| Western Asia | 75% |
| South-Eastern Asia | 73% |
| Eastern Asia | 74% |
| Central America | 72% |
| Southern Africa | 68% |
| Caribbean | 69% |
| Central Asia | 67% |
| Northern Africa | 64% |
| World | 63.1% |
| Southern Asia | 46% |
| Western Africa | 43% |
| Eastern Africa | 26% |
| Middle Africa | 25% |
- North Korea has no internet penetration and ranks last globally.
- China, India, and the US rank at the top for internet usage penetration.
- In the year 2020, the top internet users in different countries were as follows:
| Country | Internet users |
| China | 1 billion |
| India | 600.45 million |
| United States | 305.37 million |
| Brazil | 173.42 million |
| Indonesia | 146.06 million |
| Russia | 123.77 million |
Source: Statista, Cisco
Internet User Demographics
There are various users of the internet with different age groups, genders, and races. It is found that college-going students and adults under the age of 50 are more bound to use internet services. Let us take a look at the statistics related to internet users’ demographics
- In the year 2021, 99% of the people were internet users in the age group of 18 to 29 years.
Here is the detailed data of internet users in various age groups in the year 2021:
| Age Group | Internet Users |
| 18-29 | 99% |
| 30-49 | 98% |
| 50-64 | 96% |
| 65+ | 75% |
- In the year 2021, internet users in the US of different races were as follows:
| Race | Number of users |
| White | 93% |
| Black | 91% |
| Hispanic | 95% |
- In the year 2021, 94% of men used the Internet, while 93% of the women were internet users.
- The number of male and female internet users in different years is as follows:
| Year | Male | Female |
| 2015 | 86% | 84% |
| 2016 | 89% | 86% |
| 2018 | 89% | 88% |
| 2019 | 90% | 91% |
| 2021 | 94% | 93% |
Source: Pewresearch.org, Statista.
Home Broadband Statistics
Many households worldwide prefer the home broadband connection as compared to mobile internet services
- The average fixed broadband speed increased from 27.5 Mbps to 53 Mbps.
- The number of US adults who reported having a broadband connection at home:
| Year | US Adults |
| 2013 | 70% |
| 2015 | 67% |
| 2016 | 73% |
| 2018 | 65% |
| 2019 | 73% |
| 2021 | 77% |
Source: Statista, broadband search, Pewresearch.org.
Smartphone Users
Most internet users prefer mobile to carry out searches and get updated. Smartphones are convenient to carry everywhere and provide an easy search method. Here are a few stats related to smartphone internet users around the globe.
- Today, 15% of US adults are smartphone-dependent as they own only the internet through smartphones and do not have any broadband connection at home.
- The number of smartphone-dependent users in the US according to the age group are as follows:
| Age Group | Internet Users |
| 18-29 | 28% |
| 30-49 | 11% |
| 50-64 | 13% |
| 65+ | 12% |
- The number of US adults that are dependent on their smartphones for internet usage according to their race in the year 2021 is as follows:
| Race | Number of Users |
| White | 12% |
| Black | 17% |
| Hispanic | 25% |
- 14% of male users are phone dependent for internet usage, while 15% of females are, according to the data obtained in the year 2021.
Source: Statista, Pewresearch.org, Cisco.
Social Media Statistics
When it comes to internet usage, most of it is spent on social media sites. Most internet users start their day by logging in to their social media accounts. It is reported that the most used application online is social media apps. Here are a few stats related to social media usage that you must know.
- 59% of the world’s population uses social media. Out of 5 billion internet users, 4.7 billion of them are on social media.
- Facebook was the first social media platform to surpass more than one billion accounts registration. Today there are approximately more than 2.89 billion active users on Facebook.
- YouTube was reported to have 2.5 billion active users, while Whatsapp has 2 billion active users.
- Here is the data representing the active users on different social media platforms:
| Social Media Platform | Users Worldwide |
| 2.9 billion | |
| YouTube | 2.5 billion |
| 2 billion | |
| 1.478 billion | |
| Weixin/ We Chat | 1.26 billion |
| TikTok | 1 billion |
| Facebook Messenger | 988 million |
| Douyin | 600 million |
| 574 million | |
| Sina Weibo | 573 million |
- In the year 2021, social media users worldwide were reported to be 4.480 billion.
- Facebook was recorded to be the third most visited website in the world.
- The most downloaded app in the year 2021 was Tiktok.
- Facebook is the primary social media app used by 68% of Americans, while Instagram is the second most used app with 35% of the users, and Pinterest is third with 29% of American users.
- Only 35% of Facebook users are below the age of 35.
- 88% of the traffic on Facebook was reported from mobile devices.
- 80% of Instagram users are located outside of the United States.
- 38% of Instagram users will check their applications more than once per day.
Source: Cisco, Statista.
Video Statistics
Streaming video is the new time killer for most internet users. It is used as a source of entertainment and to relax and chill. Let us take a look at the statistics about video streaming done by internet users.
- 82% of internet traffic in the year 2021 came from video streaming.
- There are more than 1.8 billion unique monthly visitors on YouTube.
- Here is the data related to the most visited video sources on the web:
| Platform | Monthly Visitors |
| YouTube | 1.8 billion |
| Netflix | 150 million |
| Vimeo | 130 million |
| Yahoo! Screen | 125 million |
| Dail motion | 100 million |
| Hulu | 75 million |
- 45% of the people reported watching online video content for an hour or more.
- It was reported that 50% of users between the age of 18 and 34 would drop their current task and watch a video on a channel they just subscribed to.
- 40% of the millennials have trust issues or high-quality content on youtube.
- 50% of the people watch videos of the products and their demos before buying them.
- If a person watches more than 6 minutes of a video then it is likely that they will watch the whole video.
- 90% of the video view on Twitter are recorded through mobile.
- There is a 95% increase in the expenditure of video-based advertising.
Source: eMarketer, Statista
Search Statistics
Search is the main task that is done with the help of the internet. It is used to search all the crucial data worldwide. Most internet users mostly use their data for researching using search engines.
- Google is responsible for 92.01% of the search engine market share.
- Even for the mobile search engine, market share is ruled by Google with 95.23% of users worldwide.
- 3.5 billion searches every single day are processed by Google. That is equal to 1.2 trillion searches each year and sums up to 40,000 every second.
- Google owns 83.84% of the global share in the search market.
- 61.7% share of google sites is owned by the US market.
- 2.55% of the worldwide market share of desktops belongs to Yahoo!
- 26.2% of the US search market share belongs to Microsoft Sites.
- 76% of the search market share in China is owned by Baidu.
- 42% of internet users conduct voice searches globally.
- 93% of the mobile search market share in the US belongs to google.
- 23% of Bing’s organic traffic is from mobile searches.
- The mobile share of Google’s organic search traffic is 61%.
Source: Statista, Cisco.
Ecommerce Statistics
Online shopping is the new normal in today’s era. Most adults prefer online shopping over the traditional method of shopping. A big share of the internet is used in eCommerce. Let us take a look at all the necessary statistics related to eCommerce.
- In the year 2021, global eCommerce store sales amounted to a total of 4.9 trillion United States dollars.
- 72.9% of all online purchases are done from mobile eCommerce sites.
- Out of 4 at least 1 dollar of the eCommerce spending is done from a mobile device. The number one category that was sold online was toys and hobbies items.
- Here is the data on the total eCommerce that has taken place through Mobile:
| Year | Total eCommerce Sales. |
| 2016 | 0.97 |
| 2017 | 1.36 |
| 2018 | 1.8 |
| 2019 | 3.46 |
| 2020 | 3.75 |
| 2021 | 4.1 |
- Monday is recorded as the most popular day for eCommerce sales as in the year 2018 7.8 billion dollars in eCommerce sales were done on Monday. Black Friday recorded 5.9 billion eCommerce sales in the year 2018.
- Here are the details on the top countries with eCommerce sales:
| Country | eCommerce sales |
| China | 1.03 billion |
| United States | 259 million |
| Brazil | 119 million |
| Germany | 64 million |
| Mexico | 60 million |
| United Kingdom | 53 million |
Source: Statista, Cisco, eMarketer.
Related Read:
- LinkedIn Statistics
- Podcast Statistics
- Telegram Statistics
- Affiliate Marketing Statistics
- Quora Statistics
- Chatbot Statistics
- Clubhouse Statistics
- Disney Users
Wrapping Up: Internet User Statistics (2023)
That’s all about internet usage statistics.
I hope that the above article has updated you with all the required information. These stats are surely interesting and mindblowing to know.
There are at least 6 out of 10 people who have access to the internet. There is approximately 8.2% of growth in internet users every year. It is eight times more than the global population growth.
If I have missed any important stats related to internet users you can mention them in the comment section below. I keep updating my article and will include your comment in the article with the required credit.
So what are your views on the global usage of the internet?
