ITU Releases New Figures in Global Internet and Mobile Access Rates

ITU Graph projections on mobile-cellular subscriptions, Internet usage, fixed-telephone subscriptions, active mobile-broadband subscriptions and fixed-broadband subscriptions by the year 2014. Photo: ITU.

[Via Satellite 05-05-2014] The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recently released figures that predict there will be almost 3 billion Internet users in the world by the end of 2014, and that two-thirds of these users will be from the developing world. The numbers also predict that mobile-broadband subscriptions will reach 2.3 billion globally, and that the developing world will account for 55 percent of these subscriptions.

In Africa, statistics show that almost 20 percent of the population will use the Internet by the end of 2014, a number that has increased by 10 percent since 2010. Regarding mobile subscriptions, the ITU reports that worldwide mobile-cellular subscriptions will reach almost 7 billion by the end of the year, and approximately 3.6 billion of these subscriptions will be in the Asia-Pacific region. Africa and the Asia-Pacific will have the highest mobile-cellular growth, with penetration rates reaching 69 percent and 89 percent, respectively, by the end of 2014.

Around 44 percent of the world’s households will have Internet access by the end of the year, with a 78 percent penetration rate in developed countries, and 31 percent in developing countries.