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Nearly 42% of the world’s 7.2 billion people now access the internet. In January 2014 the figure was only 35%.
Behind the rapid expansion was the increase in mobile smartphones and tablets.
As of September, unique mobile users exceeded 50% of the world’s population, with mobile now accounting for one third of all web traffic – 39% more than it did this time last year.
The research, by marketing agency We Are Social, lead the study to predict that a continued surge in mobile will push internet penetration to more than 50% of the world’s population during 2016.
Growth has been predominately in the developing world as people there are more reliant on mobile devices to connect to the internet. In emerging economies, basic feature phones are more common than smartphones, but even these can connect to the internet.
Mobile accounts for 76% in Nigeria and 72% in India, according to the study.
Developing nations will be the top 10 areas of growth over the year ahead, led by India, China and Indonesia, and have replaced major economies such as the US, Japan, the UK and Germany.
The continued growth in mobile usage means that the use of social networks, such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, are likely to increase.
Online shopping is also expected to continue to soar. Almost two-thirds of Britons bought something online in the past month, according to GlobalWebIndex, followed by Germany (63%) and South Korea (62%) and the US (55%).
