60+ Internet Usage Statistics and Latest Trends for 2024

If you want to learn how people might interact with your website, then we find that understanding internet usage statistics really helps.

Studying these trends can help you make smart choices for your marketing and website strategies. Whether you own a business, work in marketing, or develop websites, it’s important to keep up with internet usage trends.

This article covers the latest internet usage statistics and trends that every business owner and marketer should know.

Key Internet Statistics and Trends (2024)

We’ve split up these internet statistics into several different categories. You can use the table of contents below to jump to the internet stats you are most interested in:

General Internet Usage and Demographic Statistics

Internet and availability continue to grow year by year, and in some countries, 99% of the population are internet users. It’s more important than ever to have a website for your business.

• As of February 2024, there were 5.4 billion internet users worldwide, which is 67% of the global population. 
• China, India, and the United States rank ahead of all other countries in terms of world’s internet users. As of January 2023, China had 1.05 billion internet users, and India had approximately 692 million online users.
• The global internet penetration rate is 66.2%.
• As of October 2023, the region with the highest internet penetration is Northern Europe, with 97.3% of the population online.
• As of April 2023, the countries with the highest internet penetration rate worldwide were Norway, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with 99% of the population using the internet.
• In 2023, there were around 1.5 billion fixed broadband subscriptions worldwide, an increase from the 1.4 billion subscriptions in 2022.
• The number of fixed broadband subscriptions in the Asia-Pacific region totaled about 848 million in 2023, an increase of nearly 50 million since the previous year.
• From 2000 to 2024, internet use increased by 1,482%.
• The Middle East has seen a 6,141% growth in internet usage since 2000. 
• Average daily time spent on internet use is the highest in South Africa. Users spend more than 9 hours and 24 minutes online per day. 
• The number of internet users in Australia is expected to exceed 23.3 million by 2025. However, Australia’s internet penetration rate has remained fairly stagnant over the past 5 years.
• The number of people in the world with no internet access is over 2.7 billion.
• Broadband internet is the most common type of internet access in the United States.
• The most popular language on the internet is English. 25.9% of the internet is in English, 5.3% is in Russian, and 4.3% is in Spanish.
• 32% of internet users worldwide are in the 25 to 34 years age group.

Internet usage increased by a whopping 1,482% from the year 2000 to 2024. Now, the number of internet users worldwide is 5.4 billion, which is 67 percent of the world’s population.

With so many internet users on the planet today, it’s important that every business has a website. Otherwise, you are missing out on a ton of people who could discover you online.

If you haven’t created a website yet, then simply follow our tutorial on how to make a WordPress website with step-by-step instructions. Or you can read this guide on how to start an online store.

Web Search Statistics

Search engines like Google help users find what they are looking for every day. It’s more important than ever to optimize your website for search so that people can find you online.

• In January 2024, the Chrome web browser was used by 64.41% of internet users worldwide. Next was Safari, which was used by 18.82% of users. Microsoft Edge was the 3rd most popular browser at 5.36%, and Firefox was 4th with 3.3%. 
• The three most popular websites on the internet are Google.com, YouTube.com, and Facebook.com.
• The most popular web search engine is Google, with 91.47% of the market share. Google is followed by Bing, which has only 3.24% of the market share. 
• The most searched words on Google globally (as of February 2024) are ‘YouTube’ and ‘Amazon’. Other popular searches include ‘Facebook’, ‘weather’, ‘Google’ and ‘Gmail‘. 
• The Google Search Index contains hundreds of billions of pages that add up to over 100,000,000 gigabytes in size. 
• 53.3% of global web traffic is generated by organic search. 
• There are approximately 99,000 Google searches made every 1 second. 
• The average person searches Google 3-4 times a day. 

Search engines like Google play an important role in helping users to find and navigate to different websites. This is proven by the fact that 53.3% of global web traffic is generated via online search.

In order for your website to be discovered by users in search engine results, it needs to be properly optimized for SEO.

Search engine optimization might seem complicated, especially for beginners, but it doesn’t have to be. See this guide on WordPress SEO to get actionable tips for improving your SEO and increasing organic traffic.

You can also follow this tutorial on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

All in One SEO, the best WordPress SEO plugin, will help you set up the proper SEO foundations for your site in minutes.

Plus, the SEO audit feature will analyze your entire website to detect any critical errors that could be harming your rankings and provide you with easy recommendations for improvement.

Mobile Internet Usage Statistics

Most of the world is using mobile devices, and over half of your website visitors will be on mobile devices. That means you need to make sure your site looks and functions correctly on both mobile and desktop.

• Almost 96% of the global internet population uses a mobile device to go online. 
• In 2023, internet users worldwide spent almost 60% of their time browsing the internet via mobile phones. This is an increase of 9% compared to 2020 when global internet users spent almost 51% of their online time accessing the internet via mobile devices. 
• Mobile internet traffic accounts for over 55% of total web traffic. In mobile-first markets such as Asia and Africa, mobile connections account for an even larger share of web page views. For example, 69% of Africa’s traffic is from mobile devices.
• Global mobile ownership and internet usage are forecast to keep growing in the future. This is largely due to mobile technologies becoming more affordable and readily available.
• Android is the leading mobile operating system worldwide with a market share of 70.1%. Apple iOS is second with 29.2% of the worldwide market share.
• In June 2023, 45% of the global population had access to 5G, and it is projected to reach 85% by 2029.
• In 2023, the countries providing 5G access in the most cities were the United States, China, and South Korea. 
• TikTok was the most downloaded app globally in 2023, with just over a billion downloads. It also has over 1 billion monthly active users.

In the not-so-distant past, you could only access the internet from a desktop computer. But you can clearly see from these statistics that people love being able to access the internet on the go.

Almost 96% of the global internet population uses a mobile device to go online, and mobile internet traffic accounts for over 55% of total web traffic.

Because of this, it’s important that your website looks great and is equally functional on mobile phones and tablets as it is on desktops.

See our recommendations for the best responsive WordPress themes. They automatically adjust to the users’ screen size so you can provide the best experience for mobile users.

You may also want to see our guide on how to create a mobile-friendly WordPress site.

Website and Domain Statistics 

There are a huge number of websites out there, and the number continues to grow. If you’re going to join them, then you’ll need a domain name and web hosting so that you can get online.

• There are 1.13 billion websites as of February 2023. However, 82% of them have been deactivated, which means there are around 200 million active websites on the internet.
• There are currently 350 million registered domain names in the world, and 700 million exist in the world’s database. However, only 200 million domains are actively visited. 
• The US has the highest number of registered domains, with 130.6 million domain names. 
• China is second, with around 21 million registered domain names, followed by Iceland, Canada, France, and Germany.
• The most common domain name extensions are .com, .net, .org, .co, and .us. 
• More than 43% of all websites are using WordPress as their content management system. 
• WordPress holds nearly 65% of the global CMS market share. 
• 36.28% of the top 10,000 websites are powered by WordPress.
• Every day, more than 1000 new WordPress sites join the top 10 million websites tracked by W3Techs.com.

It’s easier than ever to create a website on the World Wide Web today. That might be why there are over a billion websites on the internet. But, only 200 million of those are active.

If you have an inactive website, then all you need is web hosting and a domain name to get it up and running.

To find the right options for your needs, you can check out our recommendations for the best web hosting providers and the best domain name registrars on the market.

At WPBeginner, we recommend choosing Bluehost. They are one of the most reliable hosting companies in the world, and they are officially recommended by WordPress, the best website builder software.

Plus, WPBeginner users can get a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and a huge discount on web hosting!

Online Shopping Statistics 

Almost everyone shops online, and most people use the internet to do research before deciding on a purchase. Here are some important statistics about online shopping.

• In the United States alone, there were 300 million online shoppers in 2023. That’s 91% of the country’s current population. 
• The number of American shoppers is forecast to increase between 2024 and 2028 by a total of 50.7 million users (+17.92%).
• The countries with the leading eCommerce revenue are China ($3,024 billion), the United States of America ($1,163 billion), the UK ($196 billion), and Japan ($193 billion). 
• 46.9% of online shoppers are women, while 53.1% are men. Globally, 77.0% of all women and 84.3% of all men shop online.
• In 2023, 18-24-year-olds made up the largest share of eCommerce shoppers in the United States (46.9%), and 25-34-year-olds came in second with a 32% share.
• 59% of shoppers say they do research online before they buy in order to make the best possible choice.
• 83% of in-store shoppers searched online before going to the physical location. They said they searched for information like the closest store near them, in-stock items, business hours, directions, and contact information. 
• Nearly 70% of users admit to window shopping for fun on their smartphones.
• 77% of these digital window shoppers make impulse purchases. If they don’t purchase right away, then 70% of them will come back and make a purchase from their device within the first hour of seeing the product.

In 2023, there were 300 million online shoppers in the United States alone. That’s 91% of the country’s current population!

But, even with so many online shoppers, it can be hard to generate traffic and sales for your online store because there’s so much competition.

Since 59% of shoppers say they do research online before buying something, it’s vital that your eCommerce website shows up in search engine results if you want to compete with the big guys. You can read our ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide for easy tips.

You can also check out our list of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store. These plugins can help you reduce cart abandonment, create custom checkout pages, boost affiliate sales, increase upsells, and much more.

Social Media and Email Usage Statistics

Most internet users spend a lot of time on social media platforms. That’s why you need a social media strategy to reach out to these users where they are and drive traffic to your site. And since many users state they prefer to be contacted by email, you need to build an email list right away.

• Of the 5.35 billion internet users worldwide, 5.04 billion (over 94%) are social media users. 
• Over 200 billion tweets were tweeted on Twitter/X in 2023. 
• Over 200 billion photos were uploaded to Instagram in 2023. 
• Over 2.9 trillion videos were viewed on YouTube in 2023.
• Social media use has increased by nearly 30%, which equates to more than 1 billion new users, since the beginning of the pandemic.
• Worldwide spend on social media ads more than doubled since the pandemic, reaching $226 billion in 2022. 
• There are over 4.5 billion email accounts registered by internet users worldwide, which is 551 million more than in 2019.
• 347.3 billion emails were sent each day on average throughout 2023.
• 60% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through email. 
• 99% of email users check their email every day, with some checking up to 20 times a day. 
• 58% of users check their email before they check out social networking sites or the news.
• 40% of people 18 years old and under first open an email on a mobile device.

Social media and email are some of the most popular digital media activities, according to these internet statistics: There are 5.04 billion social media users worldwide, and 4.5 billion registered email accounts globally.

Instead of waiting for your target audience to visit your website, you should reach out to them on social media platforms and via email. This will make it easier to drive traffic to your site and increase sales.

You can check out our social media cheat sheet for tips on how to set up your social media profiles correctly.

Then, follow this step-by-step tutorial on how to create an email newsletter.

Internet of Things (IoT) Statistics 

In recent years, there are more and more smart devices connecting to the internet. Here are some important statistics on the Internet of Things (IoT).

• By the end of 2024, it’s projected there will be over 207 billion IoT devices.
• The smart home (IoT) market is projected to grow to over $1 trillion by the end of 2024.
• In 2021, about 41.9% of US households owned a smart home device. That grew to 45% in 2023 and is set to reach 50% by the end of 2024.
• Globally, an estimated 127 new devices connect to the Internet every second.
• The wearable devices market was valued at 61.3 billion in 2022.
• Approximately 70% of new vehicles worldwide were internet-connected in 2023.
• There were more than 3 internet-connected devices for every human on the planet in 2023.

The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to the many physical objects that have been embedded with sensors and software and are now connected to the internet.

According to these internet statistics, there were more than 3 internet-connected devices for every human on the planet in 2023, and the estimated number of IoT devices will jump to 207 billion by the end of 2024.

So, expect to see more smart refrigerators, locks, doorbells, watches, vehicles, and many other devices, in the near future.

List of Sources

Statista, OptinMonster, BroadbandSearch, Nameboy, InternetWorldStats, Internet Live Stats, StatCounter, Radicati, Amazon, SimilarWeb, Google, Mobile Magazine, Business of Apps, IHS Markit, McKinsey, Moz, WPBeginner, eMarketer, Cisco, DataReportal, International Telecommunication Union

That’s a wrap. We hope these internet usage statistics will provide you with valuable insights for growing your online business. You might also want to check out our other statistics articles:

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