Mobile internet is widely available, but access and use remain uneven. In 2023, about 67% of the world’s population—5.4 billion people—used the Internet, while an estimated 2.6 billion people remained offline. The figures below use the measurement periods published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); Internet-use estimates describe Internet use generally, while coverage and subscription statistics measure different parts of mobile access.
Contents
- Global adoption and the offline population
- Regional and income differences
- Gender, age, and location gaps
- Subscriptions and mobile access
- Mobile network coverage
- Traffic and affordability
Global adoption and the offline population
The ITU’s Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2023 reports that 67% of the world’s population used the Internet in 2023, equivalent to 5.4 billion people. The number of Internet users grew 4.7% between 2022 and 2023. These are global Internet-use estimates, rather than a count limited to people who connected through a mobile phone. (ITU, Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2023)
The same estimate puts the offline population at 2.6 billion people in 2023, or 33% of the global population. Adoption was much higher in high-income countries, where 93% of the population was online. In least developed countries, only 35% was online, and the figure was 39% in landlocked developing countries. The contrast shows why a high global average does not describe the experience of every country or community.
The ITU’s figures should be read alongside its scope notes. Internet-use numbers are estimates of general Internet use. They do not by themselves identify the access technology, device, frequency of use, or quality of connection for each user.
Regional and income differences
Internet use varied sharply among ITU regions in 2023. Europe recorded 91% of its population online, followed by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at 89% and the Americas at 87%. The Arab States region reached 69%, Asia-Pacific 66%, and Africa 37%. (ITU, Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2023)
Income groups also showed a stepped pattern:
| Economy group | Population using the Internet, 2023 |
|---|---|
| High-income economies | 93% |
| Upper-middle-income economies | 81% |
| Lower-middle-income economies | 55% |
| Low-income economies | 27% |
The relationship between income and use is visible in the extremes: 27% of people in low-income economies used the Internet in 2023, compared with 81% in upper-middle-income economies and 93% in high-income countries. Least developed and landlocked developing countries are separate development groupings in the ITU reporting, and their online shares were 35% and 39%, respectively.
For readers assessing potential online audiences, these numbers indicate that global reach and local reach can look very different. A service may be technically available across a large market while actual Internet use remains substantially lower in poorer economies and regions.
Gender, age, and location gaps
In 2023, 70% of men and 65% of women worldwide used the Internet. The difference represented 244 million more male than female Internet users. The global gender parity score was 0.92, up from 0.90 in 2019. Women also outnumbered men among non-Internet users by 17% globally. (ITU, Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2023)
Age was another important divider. Internet use among people aged 15–24 was 79% worldwide in 2023, 14 percentage points above the rate for the rest of the population. In high-income and upper-middle-income economies, at least 95% of 15–24-year-olds used the Internet, meeting the ITU’s universality threshold for that group. In low-income countries, people aged 15–24 were almost twice as likely to use the Internet as the rest of the population.
Urban and rural residence produced a similarly large gap. Worldwide, 81% of people in urban areas used the Internet in 2023, compared with 50% in rural areas. Regional figures show different levels of the same pattern:
- Africa: 57% urban and 23% rural.
- The Americas: 90% urban and 74% rural.
- Arab States: 82% urban and 51% rural.
- Asia-Pacific: 80% urban and 52% rural.
- CIS: 94% urban and 88% rural.
- Europe: 92% urban and 88% rural.
In low-income economies, Internet use reached 47% in urban areas but only 17% in rural areas. The urban-rural difference therefore remained especially pronounced where overall adoption was low. These use figures describe people who use the Internet, not the percentage of residents within a mobile signal’s range.
Subscriptions and mobile access
The ITU’s Facts and Figures 2023 – Subscriptions report counted 111 mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants worldwide in 2023. It also counted 87 active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Worldwide mobile-broadband subscriptions increased 27% over the five years to 2023, while mobile-cellular subscriptions increased 7% over the same period. (ITU, Facts and Figures 2023 – Subscriptions)
The world had 8.9 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions in 2023. Subscription density was about 130 mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in both high-income and upper-middle-income countries, compared with 65 per 100 inhabitants in low-income countries. The CIS region recorded 149 mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Because these counts measure subscriptions rather than unique people, they can exceed 100 per 100 inhabitants and should not be interpreted as a person-by-person adoption rate.
Mobile-broadband subscription density also differed by region. The Americas had 116 mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in 2023, while Africa had 48 per 100 inhabitants. The comparison reflects subscription levels, not necessarily the number of people who actively used mobile data or the amount of data they consumed.
Mobile network coverage
Coverage measures whether people live within range of a mobile network; it does not show whether they use the network, hold a subscription, can afford service, or receive a particular quality of connection. On that basis, 5G networks covered 40% of the world’s population in 2023. Coverage reached 89% in high-income countries, 68% in Europe, 59% in the Americas, and 42% in Asia-Pacific. (ITU, Facts and Figures 2023 – Mobile network coverage)
5G coverage was lower in the Arab States region at 12%, the CIS region at 8%, and Africa at 6%. The geographic distribution of newer network coverage was therefore substantially less even than the global headline percentage suggests.
Older generations had broader reach. 4G networks covered 90% of the world’s population in 2023, while mobile-broadband network access of some generation was available to 95%. Among people without 4G access, 55% lived in low-income countries. Mobile broadband remained out of reach for 18% of the population in least developed and landlocked developing countries.
Traffic and affordability
Mobile access and mobile traffic are not interchangeable. In 2022, fixed broadband carried 83% of all Internet traffic, while mobile broadband carried 4.2%. Global mobile-broadband traffic was estimated at 4,378 exabytes in 2022, an increase of 22% from 2021. Average mobile-broadband traffic was 11.2 GB per subscription per month worldwide. (ITU, Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2023)
Average traffic per subscription varied considerably:
| Market or economy group | Average mobile-broadband traffic per subscription per month, 2022 |
|---|---|
| Worldwide | 11.2 GB |
| CIS region | 15.1 GB |
| Least developed countries | 3.3 GB |
| Africa | 1.9 GB |
| Low-income economies | 1.3 GB |
These are averages per subscription, not per person. A subscription may be shared, unused, or held by a person with multiple subscriptions, so the figures should not be converted into individual consumption estimates.
Affordability also varied. The global median price of a data-only mobile-broadband basket fell from 1.5% to 1.3% of gross national income per capita between 2022 and 2023. Yet a benchmark 2 GB monthly mobile-broadband basket cost almost 6% of average income in a typical least developed country in 2022. Only two least developed countries met the 2% affordability target for that benchmark basket in 2022. (ITU, Facts and Figures: Focus on Least Developed Countries)
The later ITU Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2025 report states that 5G subscriptions accounted for one-third of all mobile-broadband subscriptions worldwide in 2025. This is a later measurement than the 2023 edition and should not be combined with the 2023 coverage, subscription, or use figures as if they described the same year. (ITU, Measuring digital development: Facts and Figures 2025)