How the World Goes Online

Numbers from the World Bank show how access to landline internet as well as to mobile phones still differ widely around the world. While in first-world countries mobile cellular subscriptions outnumber people by far, they still hover around 80-90 subscriptions per 100 people in countries like Pakistan, India and Nigeria. Access drops as low as 30-50 lines per 100 inhabitants in South Sudan, Mozambique or the Democratic Republic of the Congo or around 60 in Afghanistan, Venezuela or Laos.

Not all people who do have access to a mobile phone in the developing world own a smartphone, however. Penetration rates were as low as 30-40 percent in Pakistan and Nigeria and 47 percent in India according to NewZoo, leaving many people who still use a feature phone - some of which might even be 4G-enabled.

While in poorer countries people do share mobile phone subscriptions, this is common all over the world for landline internet. Broadband connections reached as high as 40-50 lines per 100 people in Europe and East Asia (and 37 in the United States), while they were much fewer elsewhere and almost non-existent in many developing nations.