Connectivity · Global Adoption

Internet Adoption

From 10 million to 6.05 billion, an S-curve whose fastest years are behind it.

• 10M → 6.05B users, 74% of the world
• Doubling stretched from 2.1 years to 8.9
• Mobile drove developing world growth
• 2.2B offline, 96% in poorer countries

Adoption slowed long before the internet ran out of people. Users grew from about 10 million in 1993 to 6.05 billion in 2025, 74% of the world’s population per ITU, passing half of humanity around 2018 — the steep middle of an S-curve, carried first by broadband and then by the mobile phone. The 2005-onward figures are ITU’s own World aggregate from its November 2025 workbook, which revises the whole series to one consistent vintage; the earlier points come from ITU’s historical Trends reports. Doubling took 2.1 years through 2009 and 8.9 years since. Absolute additions held up far longer and have only lately turned: two-year additions peaked at 866 million across 2019–2021 and are down to 453 million. About 2.2 billion people remain offline, and ITU notes 96% of them live in low- and middle-income countries. Africa has the lowest regional usage rate, though the ITU Africa region accounts for about 37% of the offline total.

Source: ITU (Key ICT indicators, Nov 2025)

Download the data: internet_users.csv · internet_users.json

All curves · The chart is drawn in your browser and needs JavaScript. Every number it plots is in the table above.