As of October 2025, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates recorded the highest internet penetration rates worldwide, each reaching ** percent. In comparison, the global internet penetration rate during the same period stood at approximately **** percent. Most connected regions According to the most recent observations, Northern Europe ranked first among global regions by connectivity rate. The share of the population accessing the internet in this region was nearly ** percent. Western Europe ranked second, followed by Northern America. Overall, the internet reach was higher than ** percent across all European regions, as well as Northern and Southern Americas. Unconnected populations Despite having the biggest online audiences worldwide, India and China are also the markets with the highest number of individuals not connected to the web. Regarding the share of population without internet access in worldwide markets, North Korea ranks first, as the internet in the country remains blocked for most of the general public as of April 2025. Burundi had **** percent of its population unconnected, followed by Chad, with **** percent.

As of October 2025, China has the world’s largest online population, with approximately 1.3 billion internet users. India, currently the most populous nation, ranks second with about 1.03 billion users. The United States follows in third place. Worldwide internet usage As of October 2025, there are more than six billion internet users worldwide. However, user distribution varies significantly by region. In 2024, Eastern Asia alone accounted for 1.34 billion internet users, while Africa and the Middle East reported considerably lower figures. As expected, urban areas also exhibited higher rates of internet access compared to rural regions. Internet use in China It is no surprise that China ranks first among countries with the most internet users. Driven by rapid economic development and a strong cultural embrace of technology, 91.6 percent of China’s estimated 1.4 billion residents are online. As of the third quarter of 2024, about 91.8 percent of Chinese internet users were active on WeChat, the country’s most popular social platform. During the same period, Chinese internet users spent an average of five hours and 33 minutes online each day.

The average for 2023 based on 177 countries was 72.46 percent. The highest value was in Bahrain: 100 percent and the lowest value was in Burundi: 11.1 percent. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

As of October 2025, **** percent of the population in Burundi lacked internet access, placing the country second worldwide in terms of offline population share. North Korea ranked first, with an internet penetration rate close to ****, as access to the global internet remains largely restricted for its citizens. Global internet freedom and access The degree of internet freedom varies drastically across countries, with some providing open access and others imposing significant restrictions. In 2024, Iceland was leading worldwide in terms of internet freedom, while Myanmar and China ranked the lowest in the world, with strict government surveillance and censorship. The struggle with limited internet access is particularly evident in Africa, which had the lowest internet penetration rates as of 2024. Global privacy concerns The limitations and restrictions to internet access around the world prove that internet users' privacy is extremely vulnerable. And those who have access to the web are somewhat aware of that. By the third quarter of 2024, around **** percent of internet users expressed concerns about companies misusing their data. This growing awareness of privacy risks is reflected in users’ behaviour. By June 2024, ***** in ***internet users worldwide had already taken measures to protect their online privacy. Additionally, many internet users reported taking further steps, such as enabling multi-factor authentication, for stronger privacy protections.

As of May 2025, Singapore had the fastest fixed broadband internet worldwide, with a median download speed of 372.02 Mbps. France ranked second at 315.38 Mbps, while the UAE followed in third. Fixed internet connections deliver broadband to a home, office, or other fixed premises, with fiber connections offering the best quality service.

This dataset provides country-level internet speeds for September 2025, split into mobile and fixed (broadband). It’s standardized for easy use in rankings, maps, and comparisons. Values are in Mbps.

Source: speedtest.net (Speedtest Global Index). Metric note: Speedtest typically reports medians. If you computed averages during your process, state it explicitly below.

Files

internet velocidad(fijo).csv — mobile internet speed by country

internet velocidad(movil).csv — fixed (broadband) internet speed by country

Coverage

Period: 2025-09 (September 2025)

Geography: Country level (one row per country)

Units: Mbps

Key fields: country, ISO codes, region, metric (mobile/fixed), value

License & Usage

Publish your processing (files, README, scripts) under CC BY 4.0.

Review Speedtest’s Terms of Use for redistribution and attribution requirements.

Clearly describe your extraction and transformation steps.

Source & Methodology

Primary source: speedtest.net (Speedtest Global Index).

Extraction: Specify whether you used an official export/API or web collection (in compliance with terms).

Metric: State median vs average and how it was computed.

Validation: country count, null checks, plausible ranges (e.g., 0.5–3000 Mbps).

Limitations & Data Ethics

Speed tests are observational and can be biased toward more active users and better devices; not a census.

Cross-country comparisons should consider penetration, infrastructure, plan mix, and methodology.

This is a single-month snapshot; avoid definitive conclusions without a time series.

Use Cases

Country/region rankings (mobile vs fixed)

Choropleth maps (join by ISO3)

Mobile vs fixed gap analysis

Dashboards and policy benchmarks

As of February 2025, Morocco had an internet penetration of over 92 percent, making it the country with the highest internet penetration in Africa. Libya ranked second, with 88.5 percent, followed by Seychelles with over 87 percent. On the other hand, The Central African Republic, Chad, and Burundi had the lowest prevalence of internet among their population. Varying but growing levels of internet adoption Although internet usage varies significantly across African countries, the overall number of internet users on the continent jumped to around 646 million from close to 181 million in 2014. Of those, almost a third lived in Nigeria and Egypt only, two of the three most populous countries on the continent. Furthermore, internet users are expected to surge, reaching over 1.1 billion users by 2029. Mobile devices dominate web traffic Most internet adoptions on the continent occurred recently. This is among the reasons mobile phones increasingly play a significant role in connecting African populations. As of early January 2024, around 74 percent of the web traffic in Africa was via mobile phones, over 14 percentage points higher than the world average. Furthermore, almost all African countries have a higher web usage on mobile devices compared to other devices, with rates as high as 92 percent in Sudan. This is partly due to mobile connections being cheaper and not requiring the infrastructure needed for traditional desktop PCs with fixed-line internet connections.

As of October 2025, India had the largest offline population worldwide, with more than 440 million people lacking internet access. Pakistan ranked second, with approximately 139.39 million people not connected to the internet. Despite these figures, both countries also ranked among those with the highest numbers of internet users globally. Internet access in Africa In 2023, Africa lagged behind other global regions regarding internet penetration rate, as only 37 percent of the continent’s population accessed the web. In contrast, around 91 percent of Europe’s population were internet users. This is heavily influenced by the infrastructure development in the region. However, some improvements are forecasted, as by 2028, the internet penetration rate in Africa will be at an estimated 48.15 percent. Global internet access challenges: disruptions and restrictions Government internet shutdowns around the world are another challenge for internet access. Between 2015 and the first half of 2023, 172 local internet connection disruptions occurred due to protests globally. Moreover, according to a 2023report on internet freedom, almost four out of ten global internet users were deprived of essential freedoms on online platforms. In 2023, 76 new restrictions on internet usage were implemented worldwide. Asia led in imposing these restrictions, accounting for approximately 55 cases across various countries in the region.

The ranking of internet costs in various countries shows significant differences, driven by economic, political, and infrastructure factors.

An analysis of average internet speeds across U.S. states in 2025, highlighting the fastest and slowest regions.

The average for 2016 based on 36 countries was 84.73 percent. The highest value was in Namibia: 100 percent and the lowest value was in Gabon: 1.9 percent. The indicator is available from 2012 to 2016. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

As of February 2025, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark ranked first in Europe by the share of the population connecting to the internet, 99 percent. Ireland and Sweden followed closely, with around 98.9 and 98.3 percent online penetration, respectfully. The European market with lowest online audience, was Croatia.

Designed and produced by the World Wide Web Foundation, the Web Index is the world’s first measure of the World Wide Web’s contribution to social, economic and political progress in countries across the world. http://thewebindex.org/about/ Scores are given in the areas of universal access; freedom and openness; relevant content; and empowerment. First released in 2012, the 2014-15 Index has been expanded and refined to include a total of 86 countries and features an enhanced data set, particularly in the areas of gender, Open Data, privacy rights and censorship. The Index combines existing secondary data with new primary data derived from an evidence-based expert assessment survey. The Web Index provides an objective and robust evidence base to inform public dialogue on the steps needed for societies to leverage greater value from the Web. It is published annually and resources permitting, it will continue to be expanded to cover more countries in the coming years. It will eventually allow for comparisons of trends over time and the benchmarking of performance across countries, continuously improving our understanding of the Web’s value for humanity.

Russia Consumer Price Index (CPI): Prev Month=100: Communication Services: Wireless: Internet Access: Broadband data was reported at 100.070 Prev Mth=100 in Dec 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 100.280 Prev Mth=100 for Nov 2018. Russia Consumer Price Index (CPI): Prev Month=100: Communication Services: Wireless: Internet Access: Broadband data is updated monthly, averaging 99.975 Prev Mth=100 from Jan 2009 (Median) to Dec 2018, with 120 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 102.150 Prev Mth=100 in Jan 2011 and a record low of 98.410 Prev Mth=100 in May 2010. Russia Consumer Price Index (CPI): Prev Month=100: Communication Services: Wireless: Internet Access: Broadband data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Federal State Statistics Service. The data is categorized under Russia Premium Database’s Inflation – Table RU.IA011: Consumer Price Index: Previous Month=100: Services.

The internet penetration rate in India rose over ** percent in 2025, from about ** percent in 2015. Although these figures seem relatively low, it meant that more than half of the population of **** billion people had internet access that year. This also ranked the country second in the world in terms of active internet users. Internet availability and accessibility By 2021, the number of internet connections across the country tripled, with urban areas accounting for a higher density of connections than rural regions. Despite incredibly low internet prices, internet usage in India has yet to reach its full potential. Lack of awareness and a tangible gender gap lie at the heart of the matter, with affordable mobile handsets and mobile internet connections presenting only a partial solution. Reliance Jio was the popular choice among Indian internet subscribers, offering them wider coverage at cheap rates. Digital living Home to one of the largest bases of netizens in the world, India is abuzz with internet activities being carried out every moment of every day. From information and research to shopping and entertainment to living in smart homes, Indians have welcomed digital living with open arms. Among these, social media usage was one of the most common reasons for accessing the internet.

Universities and higher education institutions form an integral part of the national infrastructure and prestige. As academic research benefits increasingly from international exchange and cooperation, many universities have increased investment in improving and enabling their global connectivity. Yet, the relationship of university performance and its global physical connectedness has not been explored in detail. We conduct the first large-scale data-driven analysis into whether there is a correlation between university relative ranking performance and its global connectivity via the air transport network. The results show that local access to global hubs (as measured by air transport network betweenness) strongly and positively correlates with the ranking growth (statistical significance in different models ranges between 5% and 1% level). We also showed that the local airport's aggregate flight paths (degree) and capacity (weighted degree) has no effect on university ranking, further showing global connectivity distance is more important that the capacity of flight connections. We also examined the effect of local city economic development as a confounding variable and no effect was observed suggesting that access to global transportation hubs outweighs economic performance as a determinant of university ranking. The impact of this research is that we have determined the importance of the centrality of global connectivity and, hence, established initial evidence for further exploring potential connections between university ranking and regional investment policies on improving global connectivity.

As of October 2025, 6.04 billion individuals worldwide were internet users, which amounted to 73.2 percent of the global population. Of this total, 5.66 billion, or 68.7 percent of the world's population, were social media users. Global internet usage Connecting billions of people worldwide, the internet is a core pillar of the modern information society. Northern Europe ranked first among worldwide regions by the share of the population using the internet in 2025. In the Netherlands, Norway, and Saudi Arabia, 99 percent of the population used the internet as of February 2025. North Korea was at the opposite end of the spectrum, with virtually no internet usage penetration among the general population, ranking last worldwide. Eastern Asia was home to the largest number of online users worldwide—over 1.34 billion at the latest count. Southern Asia ranked second, with around 1.2 billion internet users. China, India, and the United States rank ahead of other countries worldwide by the number of internet users. Worldwide internet user demographics As of 2024, the share of female internet users worldwide was 65 percent, five percent less than that of men. Gender disparity in internet usage was bigger in African countries, with around a 10-percent difference. Worldwide regions, like the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe, showed a smaller usage gap between these two genders. As of 2024, global internet usage was higher among individuals between 15 and 24 years old across all regions, with young people in Europe representing the most considerable usage penetration, 98 percent. In comparison, the worldwide average for the age group of 15 to 24 years was 79 percent. The income level of the countries was also an essential factor for internet access, as 93 percent of the population of the countries with high income reportedly used the internet, as opposed to only 27 percent of the low-income markets.

This dataset covers the years 1990 through 2007 and contains two types of indicators for the global distribution of information, communication and technology (ICT) resources. The data includes gini coefficients for the distribution of Internet access within countries, and a technology diffusion index that weights the distribution of broadband subscribers, personal computers, mobile phones, Internet users, and international Internet bandwidth by economic output. The data are secondary source data, based on the analysis of primary data from 204 surveys fielded in 47 countries.

South Korea registered the best 5G service among leading 5G markets as of the first quarter of 2024, with 5G present at more than 90 percent of known network operator locations. South Korea frequently tops global rankings of mobile network technology, with broad 5G coverage and high average speeds.

Germany PPI: Services: Fixed Line & Internet data was reported at 122.600 2015=100 in Dec 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 122.400 2015=100 for Sep 2023. Germany PPI: Services: Fixed Line & Internet data is updated quarterly, averaging 103.450 2015=100 from Mar 2006 (Median) to Dec 2023, with 72 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 127.200 2015=100 in Sep 2006 and a record low of 98.400 2015=100 in Mar 2017. Germany PPI: Services: Fixed Line & Internet data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistisches Bundesamt. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Germany – Table DE.I047: Producer Price Index: Services: by Type of Service: 2015=100.