The number of world Internet users reached 2.3 billion by end 2011 (blue dots in the chart), and is likely to continue growing for some more years, up to an estimated saturation point of 3.2 billion users (red line in the chart) to happen around 2026. Data from International Telecommunications Union (ITU) covering the period 1990-2011 reveals that growth has been exponential until the inflection point in 2008, when volume reached 1.6 billion, after which it started to slowly decelerate.

The current forecast (compare with 2008 and 2010 forecasts) suggests that Internet users will approach the plateau of 3.2 billion by 2026 and reach 90% of total potential market as soon as 2016. Such a scenario makes sense considering the prevailing Internet habits nowadays — 3.2 billion users is equivalent to roughly one Internet subscription per home, which is a sensible conjecture.

However, one should not exclude the possibility that mobile Internet services, in other words access to Internet services through cellular phones and other mobile devices, could cause the surge of the number of Internet users, causing them to exceed the 3.2 billion saturation point, in the same way mobile phone caused the explosion of the number of telephone subscribers.

Quoted hereinafter are other pertinent findings highlighted in June 2012 ITU's data release :

In developing countries, the number of Internet users doubled between 2007 and 2011, but only a quarter of inhabitants in the developing world were online by end 2011.

The percentage of individuals using the Internet in the developed world reached the 70% landmark by end 2011. In Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden more than 90% of the population are online.

By end 2011, 70% of the total households in developed countries had Internet, whereas only 20% of households in developing countries had Internet access. Some outstanding exceptions include Lebanon and Malaysia with 62% and 61% of households with Internet respectively.

Total international Internet bandwidth increased seven-fold over the last five years reaching 76,000 Gbit/s by end 2011. This equates to 34,000 bit/s per Internet user worldwide.

Major differences in Internet bandwidth per Internet user persist between regions: on average, a user in Europe enjoys 25 times as much international Internet capacity as a user in Africa.

World Internet Users

Forecast Year Number

(million) Actual Forecast ¹ 1990 2.64 29.7 1991 4.4 38.4 1992 7 49.7 1993 10 64.1 1994 21 82.7 1995 40 106.5 1996 74 136.8 1997 117 175.3 1998 183 223.8 1999 275 284.5 2000 390 359.7 2001 489 451.7 2002 616 562.7 2003 721 694.2 2004 867 846.7 2005 1,022 1,019.3 2006 1,150 1,209.4 2007 1,364 1,412.4 2008 1,560 1,622.3 2009 1,746 1,832.3 2010 2,013 2,035.3 2011 2,265 2,225.4 2012 2,398.0 2013 2,550.5 2014 2,682.0 2015 2,793.0 2016 2,885.0 2017 2,960.2 2018 3,020.9 2019 3,069.4 2020 3,107.9 2021 3,138.2 2022 3,162.0 2023 3,180.5 2024 3,195.0 2025 3,206.3 ¹ Logistic growth function

Source: ITU International Telecommunications Union

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