The world is online: more than half of the population has Internet connection

The world, more online than ever before. According to the report 2018 Digital Consumer Index: Identifying Key Opportunities for Digital Investment, by Euromonitor, for the first time in history more than half of the world will be connected to the Internet his year.

In 2000, barely 10% of the population used the Internet. That percentage has increased progresively over the last two decades, reaching in 2019 a little more than half of the population, which means more than 4 billion active users.

The highest levels of connectivity are in the more developed regions such as North America and the countries of Western Europe. In fact, in these regions, more than 80% of the population will use the Internet during this year.

In the upcoming three years, the number of new users connected in China and India will overtake the ones the United States has today

In emerging economies, connectivity has grown in the last two decades thanks to the accessibility of the Internet, the possibility to obtain a cheap mobile phone and the global infrastructure. Currently, almost half of the population in those regions is connected. Actually, of the top ten of countries with higher growth rates, seven of them are in Africa.

On the other hand, the report also sets the sight on China and India, the two countries that are expected to have the largest amount of people connected to the Internet. According to Euromonitor, this year there will be more than one hundred million new users in those markets. In addition, the report explains that during the following three years China and India will add more people connected than the United States currently has.

Moreover, the report analyses as well the changes that the increase in people connected to the Internet have meant for the society and the companies. According to the consultant firm, the competitiveness parameters have changed and the bigger in the world, such as Amazon or Facebook, do not operate in the physical channel.

Entertainment is the most popular activity among Internet users

Beyond receiving calls and messages, among the most popular activities for Internet users are those related to entertainment, like watching shows, music streaming and reading books, and others such as online banking, price comparison and ecommerce.

The countries that lead the ranking of the most connected regions are Australia, South Korea and Denmark, with 70.6%, 68.8% and 68.2% of the population connected, respectively.