
The World
Internet World Stats has reported recently that the estimated number of Internet users in the world is 1,412,489,652 persons as of May 31, 2008. Penetration rate is 21.2 %, based on a world population of 6,676,120,288 according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates for mid-year 2008.
As usual, the Internet World Stats main table is divided into the seven main geographic areas of the world and shows the Internet users, population, and the penetration rate for each region. On this occasion, however, we included the historic number of Internet users for the year 2000. This allows us to analyze and compare the growth of Internet users in each region during the last seven years.
The first conclusion from the numbers is that each geographic region is completely different from the others and that the growth behavior is also quite different. Following is a brief summary describing my findings.
The region with more population, and most Internet users, is Asia with 530,153,451 users and a low penetration rate of 14.0 %. Next in size is Europe with 384,332,394 Internet users and a penetration rate of 48.0 %. Third in size is Northern America, with 247,637,606 Internet users and the highest penetration rate of all: 73.4 %. Oceania, composed mainly of Australia and New Zealand Internet users, also has a high penetration rate of 59.5%, intermediate between North America and Europe.
There are three world regions that we could call “late adopters” and in the year 2000 showed very few Internet users. They are Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. It is interesting to point out that all three areas are doing their best to catch up with the rest of the world and Internet usage has grown at a fantastic speed, although penetration still remains low.
Between 2000 and 2008 Internet user growth was 1,176.8% in the Middle East, 1,030.2% in Africa and 659.3% in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is important to point out that Internet growth rates are low in the “early adopters” regions. North America grew 129.1% and Oceania grew 165.1% in this same time period. This is absolutely normal behavior as the “early adopters” get nearer to their maximum Internet usage point.
Keep in mind that penetration rate is equivalent to the percentage of the population that uses the Internet. Between 2000 and 2008, the Internet added 1,102,642,869 new users. See the Stats