In terms of national-level Internet penetration, the US is fifth in the world (at 78.2% of our population), after the UK (82%), South Korea (80.9%), Germany (79.9%), and Japan (78.4%), according to InternetWorldStats.com’s Top 20 countries list for number of Net users (as 6/30/11). Purely in terms of Internet users, the Top 5 are China (with an estimated 485 million), the US (245m), India (100m), Japan (99m) and Brazil (76m). Interestingly, Nigeria – the only African country in the Top 20 – is No. 10 at 44 million Net users. The Internet’s Top 20 countries represent more than three-quarters of the world’s Net users (75.8%). This imbalance will change quickly as more and more people in developing countries are accessing the Net cheaply on 3G mobile phones (Kenyans, for example, spend 43% of their disposable income on mobile phones – see this).
Leave a Reply