India has overtaken the United States to become the world’s second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China’s 721 million, ITU said.
Six nations – including China and India – together account for 55 percent of the global population still offline.
Globally, 3.9 billion people are not using the Internet.
China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria account for 55 percent of all unconnected people, while 20 countries – including the US – account for 75 percent of those not using the Internet.
As smartphone penetration reaches near-saturation in the US, Europe and mature markets in Asia like Japan and Korea, India and Indonesia in particular are expected to drive future growth. India also recently overtook the US to become the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with 260 million mobile broadband subscriptions.
“There is a large body of economic evidence for the role of affordable broadband connectivity as a vital enabler of economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.
By end 2016, 3.5 billion people will be using the Internet, up from 3.2 billion last year and equating to 47 percent of the global population.
The top ten developing countries for household Internet penetration are all located in Asia or the Middle East.
The Republic of Korea continues to have the world’s highest household Internet penetration, with 98.8 percent of homes connected; Qatar (96 percent) and United Arab Emirates (95 percent) rank second and third, respectively.
Iceland continues to have the highest percentage of individuals using the Internet (98.2 percent), while Luxembourg (97.3 percent) has surpassed Norway to take second place, and Andorra (97 percent) takes third place from Denmark.
Monaco remains ahead of Switzerland as the world leader in fixed broadband penetration, at over 47 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants compared with the Swiss figure of 45 percent. There are now seven economies (Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Denmark, the Netherlands, France and the Republic of Korea) where fixed broadband penetration exceeds 40 percent, up from six countries in 2014 and just one nation (Switzerland) in 2012.
Finland has the world’s highest percentage of active mobile broadband subscriptions, with 144 subscriptions per 100 people, followed by Singapore (142) and Kuwait (139). The Asia-Pacific region accounts for nearly half (48 percent) of all active mobile broadband subscriptions.
