Internet Users by Country 2025

As of early 2025, approximately 5.64 billion people worldwide, about 68.7% of the global population, use the internet. This is quite an increase from 2022, when 4.9 billion people, or 69% of the world’s population, were online. The slight decrease in the percentage—from 69% in 2022 to 68.7% in 2025—is due to the overall growth in global population during this period.

To put this into perspective, in the year 2000 only 361 million people worldwide used the internet, a number that equates to only 6% of the world’s population at that time. The growth in internet usage continues, with 144 million new users coming online over the past year, although the annual growth rate has slowed to 2.6%.

About 31% of the world’s population, or roughly 2.6 billion people, have never used the internet and do not have a way to access it. Most of those in this group live in Africa, even though the Arabian Peninsula contains a high penetration of internet users. As of 2024, about 38% of Africa’s population is online—up from 33% in 2021. Urban areas here are at 57% internet usage, and rural areas are at just 23% – still far behind Europe and North America where rates are over 90%.

Usage Facts About Internet Users

Over the past decade or so, daily internet use has grown by more than 60%. In 2012, the average person accessed the internet for only 90 minutes per day. Based on 2025 numbers, the average internet user now spends about 6 hours and 40 minutes online each day, or about 47 hours per week. American internet users have one of the highest weekly usage rates, often exceeding that average.

Smartphones have changed the way people access the internet and made the online world more accessible to the general population. Between 2021 and 2025, over 700 million new smartphone users were added globally, pushing the total number past 7 billion. The growth of smartphone users has helped the mobile share of internet usage grow from 52% to 63% in just 5 years. It is projected that by 2030, about 73% of worldwide smartphone users will access the internet solely from their phones.

Internet usage still varies by age, but the gap is narrowing. In the United States, nearly all adults aged 18 to 29 use the internet, while usage among those 65 and older has grown significantly—now reaching around 75%.

Internet Users By Country

China leads the world with the highest number of internet users, but only slightly over 77% of its total population uses the internet. Similarly, India holds the second-largest share of internet users, though that accounts for just about 66% of the country’s population. Meanwhile, western countries like The United Kingdom and The United States maintain internet penetration rates of over 90%.

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Numbers of Internet Users

Global Outlook for Internet Users

As internet adoption continues to grow in such countries as India and China, the number of internet users is expected to rise, representing larger portions of the populations in these countries. It is also expected that the internet will become increasingly accessible across Africa over the next decade.