Worldwide digital population as of January 2021

How many people use the internet?

As of January 2021 there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide - 59.5 percent of the global population. Of this total, 92.6 percent (4.32 billion) accessed the internet via mobile devices.

Global internet usage

By now, a world without the internet is unimaginable. Connecting billions of people worldwide, the internet is a core pillar of the modern information society. The global internet penetration rate is 59.5 percent, with Northern Europe ranking first with a 96 percent internet penetration rate among the population. The countries with the highest internet penetration rate worldwide are the UAE, Denmark, and Sweden. At the opposite end of the spectrum is North Korea with virtually no online usage penetration among the general population, ranking last worldwide. As of 2020, Asia was the region with the largest number of online users – over 2.5 billion at the latest count. Europe was ranked second with almost 728 million internet users.

Which country has the highest number of internet users?

China, India and the United States rank ahead all other countries in terms of internet users. China has more than 854 million internet users, and India has approximately 560 million online users. Both countries still have large parts of the population that are offline.