This article was published on October 19, 2010

This year the Internet will pass 2 billion users


This year the Internet will pass 2 billion users

That’s right, according to the United Nations, there will be more than 2 billion worldwide Internet users by the end of the year.

The UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said in a report released today that the number of Internet users has doubled over the last five years, and that 226 million new users have been added just this year alone, with 162 million from developing countries.

Some other findings from the study according to Reuters:

  • 71% of the developed world is online
  • 21% of the developing world is online
  • Broadband is “the next tipping point” to getting people online
  • 65% of Europeans are online, 55% in the Americas, 9.6% in Africa and 21.9% in Asia Pacific
  • 13.5% of people have Internet access at home in developing countries, compared to 65% in developed ones
  • Mobile phones are a far more important communications technology than the Internet

Oh, and that 2 billion number means that more than one in four users in the world are on Facebook, right?

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