Comments for Worldwide Internet Penetration is just 15%

Worldwide Internet Penetration is just 15%

2006-05-30T03:44:31Z

According to the Miniwatts Marketing Group's Internet Usage and World Population Statistics (last updated March 31, 2006), worldwide Internet penetration is only 15.7%! So much for the World Wide Web... this is indeed sobering stuff for those of us obsessed with 'web 2.0' technology. Here's the main table of stats:

WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS
World Regions	Population % of World	% Population (Penetra- tion)	Usage % of World	Usage Growth 2000-2005
Africa	14.1 %	2.6 %	2.3 %	423.9 %
Asia	56.4 %	9.9 %	35.6 %	218.7 %
Europe	12.4 %	36.1 %	28.5 %	177.5 %
Middle East	2.9 %	9.6 %	1.8 %	454.2 %
North America	5.1 %	68.6 %	22.2 %	110.3 %
Latin America / Caribbean	8.5 %	14.4 %	7.8 %	342.5 %
Oceania / Australia	0.5 %	52.6 %	1.7 %	134.6 %
WORLD TOTAL	100.0 %	15.7 %	100.0 %	183.4 %

Source: World Internet Usage Statistics and Population Stats (nb: removed two columns to make it fit)

In North America, where most Web innovations still come from, the penetration figure is 68.6%. However in Africa it's just 2.6%, Asia 9.9% and the Middle East 9.6%. Together Africa, Asia and Middle East make up 73.4% of the world's population. So that basically means 3/4 of the world has extremely low Internet penetration. The one positive note is that usage growth rates are encouraging (see column on the right).

Interesting to note that China, seen by most analysts as a big growth market for Web technologies, has an Internet penetration of only 8.5%. Considering that great parts of China are rural, this isn't overly surprising. Also mobile technologies have a much bigger impact in China, than the PC.

Still, these figures put things into perspective. I feel very lucky to live in a country (New Zealand) that has 76.3% penetration - even if the broadband is slow and expensive!

p.s. amazing how in these circumstances Pete Cashmore has managed to get 5 billion RSS subscribers ;-)

Comment from Hashim on 2006-05-30

2006-05-30T11:27:29Z

this is why mobile is so important. Many of these places will start using the web on their mobile phones before they have the ability to use it on a pc

Comment from Derek Organ on 2006-05-30

2006-05-30T13:44:27Z

I was looking at the stats of top 20 countries and interestingly Japan's internet adoption has dropped according to those stats from 2000 - 2005 which i found surprising.

Very useful resource though, especially for anyone looking to make multi-language web applications. I wonder how the stats are figured out.

Comment from Pete Cashmore on 2006-05-30

2006-05-30T14:18:36Z

Only 5 billion? I guess my subscriber numbers go down at weekends. :)

Comment from Marcello on 2006-05-30

2006-05-30T20:24:48Z

I believe that less than 50% of the world's population has access to a telephone, much less the internet. Much of the world still relies on radio and word-of-mouth for their information.

Comment from ismael on 2006-05-30

2006-05-31T03:58:39Z

Yeah, despite the low penetration, those growth figures are encouraging for us south americans too.

Comment from Nicolas Toper on 2006-05-31

2006-05-31T23:16:17Z

I think personal P2P (P4?) application are important and might be stronger than traditionnal P2P networks.

Basically it is your own FTP server. Something a lot of geeks have already...

One important marketing issue how much the barrier to entry is low. This is why so many start-up are going for it. But user socioeconomic is really close to IM and social software (Friendster, MySpace,...).

MSN Messenger have already a component to allow file sharing between two contacts (without sending it explicitely). The grown ups are already coming in. Is it already the end of those new companies?