According to a survey of global cross-border shoppers in ** countries, China was the most popular market to buy online from abroad, with ** percent of respondents stating that they shopped from Chinese e-commerce sites. Germany ranked second with ** percent, followed by the U.S. with * percent. Figures are based on the foreign markets where buyers made their most recent cross-border purchase.

As of February 2025, China ranked first among the countries with the most internet users worldwide. The world's most populated country had 1.11 billion internet users, more than triple the third-ranked United States, with just around 322 million internet users. Overall, all BRIC markets had over two billion internet users, accounting for four of the ten countries with more than 100 million internet users. Worldwide internet usage As of October 2024, there were more than five billion internet users worldwide. There are, however, stark differences in user distribution according to region. Eastern Asia is home to 1.34 billion internet users, while African and Middle Eastern regions had lower user figures. Moreover, the urban areas showed a higher percentage of internet access than rural areas. Internet use in China China ranks first in the list of countries with the most internet users. Due to its ongoing and fast-paced economic development and a cultural inclination towards technology, more than a billion of the estimated 1.4 billion population in China are online. As of the third quarter of 2023, around 87 percent of Chinese internet users stated using WeChat, the most popular social network in the country. On average, Chinese internet users spent five hours and 33 minutes online daily.

Google is not only popular in its home country but is also the dominant internet search provider in many major online markets, frequently generating between ** and ** percent of desktop search traffic. The search engine giant has a market share of over ** percent in India and accounted for the majority of the global search engine market, ahead of other competitors such as Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, and Baidu. Google’s online dominance All roads lead to Rome, or if you are browsing the internet, all roads lead to Google. It is hard to imagine an online experience without the online behemoth, as the company offers a wide range of online products and services that all seamlessly integrate with each other. Google search and advertising are the core products of the company, accounting for the vast majority of the company revenues. When adding this up with the Chrome browser, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Google’s ownership of the Android mobile operating system, and various other consumer and enterprise services, Google is basically a one-stop shop for online needs. Google anti-trust rulings However, Google’s dominance of the search market is not always welcome and is keenly watched by authorities and industry watchdogs – since 2017, the EU commission has fined Google over ***** billion euros in antitrust fines for abusing its monopoly in online advertising. In March 2019, European Commission found that Google violated antitrust regulations by imposing contractual restrictions on third-party websites in order to make them less competitive and fined the company *** billion euros.

Two out of three regular e-shoppers bought from foreign websites, mainly because they were looking for better deals and secondly to find products or brands not available in Romania. The most common foreign countries for online orders were China, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Only 15 percent of purchases were made from neighboring countries, while the European average was 45 percent.

In 2024, 68 percent of online shoppers in Switzerland said that they had bought items from Germany online in the past 12 months. China and France rounded off the top three most popular countries when it came to cross border commerce.

Austria is one of the most popular markets for cross-border e-commerce worldwide. In 2023, more than eight in ten Austrian digital buyers purchased online from abroad. Among the countries analyzed, Israel had the second-highest share of cross-border shoppers, at ** percent. On the other hand, Turkey showed the lowest cross-border e-commerce usage, at only ** percent. Cross-border online shopping is a growing trend in the global e-commerce market, with an estimated *** trillion U.S. dollars in value anticipated by 2030. International differences in revenue share Statista Market Insights reveals that while Japan, the United States, and China had relatively low shares of cross-border e-commerce retail revenue at around two to three percent, Belgium and Austria had significantly higher revenue generated cross-border at **% and **% respectively. This suggests that certain countries are more receptive to cross-border online shopping, presenting favorable opportunities for businesses to target these markets specifically. From which country do cross-border shopper buy? A survey conducted in ** countries globally highlights that China is the most popular market for online cross-border purchases, with **% of respondents indicating they shop from Chinese e-commerce sites. This indicates the strong appeal of the Chinese market for international buyers. Additionally, Germany and the U.S. ranked as the second and third most popular markets for cross-border online purchases.

For UK consumers who purchased goods from sellers outside of the UK in 2024, China was the most popular country. According to the results of a recent consumer survey, 44 percent of UK consumers stated that their most recent cross-border purchase was from China. Germany was the third-most popular destination country with six percent of consumers having bought online from this country.

As of March 2025, Google represented 79.1 percent of the global online search engine market on desktop devices. Despite being much ahead of its competitors, this represents the lowest share ever recorded by the search engine in these devices for over two decades. Meanwhile, its long-time competitor Bing accounted for 12.21 percent, as tools like Yahoo and Yandex held shares of over 2.9 percent each. Google and the global search market Ever since the introduction of Google Search in 1997, the company has dominated the search engine market, while the shares of all other tools has been rather lopsided. The majority of Google revenues are generated through advertising. Its parent corporation, Alphabet, was one of the biggest internet companies worldwide as of 2024, with a market capitalization of 2.02 trillion U.S. dollars. The company has also expanded its services to mail, productivity tools, enterprise products, mobile devices, and other ventures. As a result, Google earned one of the highest tech company revenues in 2024 with roughly 348.16 billion U.S. dollars. Search engine usage in different countries Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide. But in some countries, its alternatives are leading or competing with it to some extent. As of the last quarter of 2023, more than 63 percent of internet users in Russia used Yandex, whereas Google users represented little over 33 percent. Meanwhile, Baidu was the most used search engine in China, despite a strong decrease in the percentage of internet users in the country accessing it. In other countries, like Japan and Mexico, people tend to use Yahoo along with Google. By the end of 2024, nearly half of the respondents in Japan said that they had used Yahoo in the past four weeks. In the same year, over 21 percent of users in Mexico said they used Yahoo.

As of February 2025, the United States was the region with the largest TikTok audience by far, with almost ****** million users engaging with the popular social video platform. Indonesia followed, with around ***** million TikTok users. Brazil came in third, with almost ***** million users on TikTok watching short-videos. From Reels to Shorts: social short video takes the internet Between 2021 and 2022 some of the most popular social media platforms have been adding short-video features on the heels of TikTok’s popularity. YouTube Shorts, which rolled out to the global market in June 2021, reached *** billion monthly active logged-in users in 2023. In comparison, Instagram’s short-video format Reels, which launched in August 2020, presented a higher view rate than regular videos on the platform between June 2021 and June 2022, as well as a higher likes rate than other content types on Instagram. TikTok business model TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, along with the short-video app Douyin (TikTok’s version for the Chinese market), video platform Xigua, and popular news app Toutiao. While the products intended for domestic market consumption operate in the Chinese digital ecosystem and have a plurality of established monetization methods such as a live-shopping events hosted by famous influencers, TikTok’s main revenue stream comes from online advertising. In 2022, TikTok was estimated to have generated around **** billion U.S. dollars worldwide via online advertising.

Which county has the most Facebook users? There are more than 383 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country, then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 196.9 million, 122.3 million, and 111.65 million Facebook users respectively. Facebook – the most used social media Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3.5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising. Facebook usage by device As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

As of February 2025, English was the most popular language for web content, with over 49.4 percent of websites using it. Spanish ranked second, with six percent of web content, while the content in the German language followed, with 5.6 percent. English as the leading online language United States and India, the countries with the most internet users after China, are also the world's biggest English-speaking markets. The internet user base in both countries combined, as of January 2023, was over a billion individuals. This has led to most of the online information being created in English. Consequently, even those who are not native speakers may use it for convenience. Global internet usage by regions As of October 2024, the number of internet users worldwide was 5.52 billion. In the same period, Northern Europe and North America were leading in terms of internet penetration rates worldwide, with around 97 percent of its populations accessing the internet.

While domestic online stores were the most popular among Polish shoppers in 2019, a significant share shopped on foreign platforms. The most popular overseas online stores were based in China. Stores from Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. were also popular.

As of February 2025, India was the country with the largest YouTube audience by far, with approximately 491 million users engaging with the popular social video platform. The United States followed, with around 253 million YouTube viewers. Brazil came in third, with 144 million users watching content on YouTube. The United Kingdom saw around 54.8 million internet users engaging with the platform in the examined period. What country has the highest percentage of YouTube users? In July 2024, the United Arab Emirates was the country with the highest YouTube penetration worldwide, as around 94 percent of the country's digital population engaged with the service. In 2024, YouTube counted around 100 million paid subscribers for its YouTube Music and YouTube Premium services. YouTube mobile markets In 2024, YouTube was among the most popular social media platforms worldwide. In terms of revenues, the YouTube app generated approximately 28 million U.S. dollars in revenues in the United States in January 2024, as well as 19 million U.S. dollars in Japan.

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.

In 2022, Wordle was the most popular Google search in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Spain. By contrast, in Germany and Italy, Ukraine was the most popular search on Google. In Brazil, Google users were interested the most in the 2022 elections.

Wordle!

Launched in October 2021 and purchased by the New York Times in January 2022, Wordle is an online game where players can play only once a day and have to guess a five-letter word in six tries. The game became an instant hit, with a surge of daily users at the beginning of the year. For instance, it was one of the most popular iPhone apps in the United States, being played mostly by millennials. Also in the United Kingdom, the game gained in popularity, with most players using the app every day.

Google search

As the leading search engine in many countries, Google is the most visited multi-platform web property. Indeed, most of Google's revenues come from Google properties, which include the search platform, the traffic generated by search distribution partners using Google.com as their default search in browsers, and the advertising on its own sites.

According to a survey of global internet audiences in the third quarter of 2024, 83.6 percent of internet users played video games on any device. The Philippines had the highest video gaming usage reach, ranking first with a gaming penetration of 96.6 percent. Indonesia ranked second, with 96.4 percent of responding internet users stating that they played video games. The United Kingdom and Japan ranked last, with 71.1 and 64.4 percent of internet users, respectively, reporting their participation in video gaming. The impact of mobile gaming The global gaming penetration among online users was over 83 percent, highlighting how much of a mainstream hobby gaming has become. Additionally, as shown by the many mobile-first digital markets with strong gaming reach, the impact of readily available mobile gaming devices cannot be overstated. A survey from the third quarter of 2024 found that smartphones were the most popular way to play video games worldwide, with more than 67 percent of respondents stating to play video games in such a way. This usage rate was miles ahead of second-ranked laptop or desktop PCs, which only 34 percent of global gamers stated to use. Who are the global gaming audiences? A survey conducted in the third quarter of 2023 found that 89.6 percent of female internet users aged 16 to 24 years worldwide played video games on any kind of device. During the survey period, 92.6 percent of male respondents in the same age group stated that they played video games. Gaming is a more popular activity among younger age groups, but even seven in ten respondents between 55 and 64 years old stated that they were gamers. Gaming genre preferences vary by age group, but overall, shooters and action-adventure games rank first in terms of popularity among users. Other popular gaming genres were simulation and sports games.

According to a 2023 survey, the most popular social media platforms for buying products worldwide were Facebook and Instagram. Both networks belong to parent company Meta. Among the selected countries, Czechia (** percent) and the United States (** percent) used Facebook the most to shop for products. Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal had the most social shoppers on Instagram (each ** percent).

During a 2024 survey, it was found that the preferred method of payment for making deposits into online sports betting accounts was with a debit card, with an average of 42 percent of global sports bettors doing so. However, some markets differed from this trend, such as France, where credit cards were preferred.

As of 2022, cash was the main payment method used in online retail in Morocco, Kenya, and Egypt, accounting for ** percent, ** percent, and ** percent of the total, respectively. On the other hand, cash was not that prevalent in South Africa, where ** percent of e-commerce payments occurred by card, and ** percent by bank transfer. In Nigeria, most digital buyers used card-based payments (** percent) and bank transfers (** percent). Cash is still the most popular payment method The majority of the transactions in Africa occur in ****. Most countries on the continent rely significantly on ****, which is frequently used also in informal economies. Since credit cards are still not common in Africa, other payment methods are usually preferred. The same applies to online retail. When purchasing online, customers often use *************************. Despite country-specific differences, cash remains the leading payment method in Africa. Nevertheless, the use of mobile money has been growing significantly in recent years. In 2021, Sub-Saharan Africa was the leading region by number of mobile money accounts worldwide. This payment method represents a huge potential for digital payments in a continent where a limited share of the population owns a bank account. E-commerce growth in Africa E-commerce in Africa has been rapidly expanding in recent years. This growth was due to several factors, including demographic trends as well as the increasingly higher levels of internet penetration. On the continent, online retail generates the highest revenues in Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya. **************************************** are among the leading online marketplaces, all local websites. Founded in Nigeria in 2012, ***** was the most popular e-commerce platform by number of visitors. The number of online shoppers in Africa is forecast to increase in the coming years to exceed *** million by 2025.

In a late 2024 survey, it was found that online television among countries of the European Union was most popular in Denmark and Sweden, with ** percent of respondents stating to watch TV via the internet every day or almost every day. On the opposite side, Poland and Bulgaria presented the lowest online TV popularity, with ** and ***** percent of daily users, respectively.