- Countries in Africa and Asia saw the biggest gains in Internet penetration between 2022 and 2023.
- 66 countries saw less than a 1% increase in Internet penetration rate between this time, with 15 countries experiencing declines.
- Although many sectors and decision makers consider Internet penetration a critical indicator of digital development, the data is not as accurate, standardised, or up-to-date as it could be.
Internet use (penetration) is a metric that is commonly used to show the growth of the Internet.
The Pulse Country Reports draws this data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). We also make this data available via our Pulse API, so you can track trends, plot correlations, and compare it to your own data sources.
Recently, we updated our data repository to show Internet penetration data from 2019 up to 2023 for 186 countries.
African and Asian Countries See Greatest Growth
Around one-third of the global population does not currently use the Internet, the majority of whom live in Africa and Asia.
Unsurprisingly, countries in these two regions recorded the greatest increases in Internet penetration between 2022 and 2023, led by a 37% and 32% increase in Uganda and Tanzania, respectively (see interactive).
Encouragingly, many of these countries have also had sustained growth since 2019, with Comoros, Madagascar, the Philippines, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau also featuring in the top 20 countries for greatest Internet penetration growth between 2019 and 2023 (see interactive).
It’s worth noting that the combined population of the above countries is around 750 million, again an encouraging sign that usage is growing in currently underrepresented markets.
Conflicts Are Impacting Growth in Other Countries
At the other end of the spectrum, 66 countries saw less than a 1% increase in Internet penetration rate, with 15 countries experiencing declines in Internet use between 2022 and 2023 (see interactive).
This included Israel (-5.2%), Palestine (-2.3%), and Ukraine (0.4%), which have been experiencing conflict for a few years.
Thankfully, the number of countries experiencing low or no growth drops significantly when comparing 2023 to 2019 figures. Eight countries have seen less than 1% growth across this time period, and only one country has registered a (significant) decline: Japan (see interactive).
IIJ’s Matsuzaki Yoshinobu helped shed some light on this curious trend, pointing to a Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications report that notes the design of the 2019 Internet usage survey they conducted was partially different from that in previous years, and also registered a higher number of responses among elderly people.
Encouragingly, Japan has been making gains since 2021.
Measure locally and consistently
Although many sectors and decision makers consider Internet penetration a critical indicator of digital development, the data is not as accurate, standardised, or up-to-date as it could be.
More than half (58%) of the figures shared by the ITU are estimates, rather than from active or passive measurement systems or surveys. Kudos to the governments, such as Japan, that measure these and other digital development figures consistently and make the data publicly available.