Half The World's Online Via Mobile, But Growth Is Slowing

Just over half the global population now has access to mobile internet, but the rate of growth is slowing. While some of the remainder live in hard-to-reach areas, most are found in low and middle-income countries that aren't hurting for mobile broadband support.

These are some of the findings from the State of Mobile Internet Connectivity report for 2024 published by the GSM Association (GSMA), the industry body that represents the interests of mobile network operators.

The 93-page report also looks at the ways people are using mobile internet, and considers the key barriers to its adoption.

It claims that while more people than ever are accessing the internet via a mobile device, there are still significant digital divides. Those who are digitally excluded are more likely to be poor, less educated, rural, and female, the report states.

The GSMA says that renewed efforts are needed to close this divide as those without access are at risk of being left behind in an increasingly connected world where the internet is being used to deliver critical services such as healthcare, education, e-commerce, and financial services.

By the end of 2023, it is estimated that 57 percent of the global population, or about 4.6 billion people, were using the mobile internet. This is based on data drawn from the GSMA Consumer Survey, the GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index (MCI), and a range of other industry reports.

This figure is up by 160 million people over the year, indicating a slowdown in growth compared to 2015-2021, when the world was adding more than 200 million people each year to the connected list.

The report puts the grand total of people who are still not using the mobile internet at 3.45 billion, but says that 90 percent of these are living in an area that is covered by a network.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, pretty much all of those lacking mobile internet access (95 percent) live in low to middle-income countries, and most of the growth in 2023 came from there.

Only about 4 percent of the global population now lives in areas that lack mobile broadband coverage, which means that it isn't network availability keeping most of the unserved people from getting online.

The GSMA says the figure is only a marginal reduction on previous years, with about 350 million people still not covered by a mobile broadband network. These tend to be communities that are the most challenging to reach, being in predominantly rural and sparsely populated areas.

Perhaps also unsurprisingly, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the lowest connectivity levels. About 13 percent of the population, or 160 million people, lack network coverage, but a whopping 60 percent – or 710 million – are not using the mobile internet despite living in areas where there is coverage.

In regions such as North America and Europe, just 1 percent of the population is not reached by any network, while those covered but not using it make up 19 and 24 percent of the population in those areas, respectively.

Reaching those without coverage may be tricky. The GSMA report says that almost all the increases in mobile broadband coverage in low to middle-income countries have been made by upgrading 2G cell sites. However, more than half of those people not covered live in areas where there is no pre-existing mobile infrastructure, meaning it would be costly to connect them.

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The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have estimated that around $430 billion of investment would be needed to put in place the infrastructure required to enable universal access to mobile broadband by 2030, according to the report.

Addressing the gaps will therefore require a combination of alternative technologies, alternative financing models, and policy reform to stimulate investment, it says.

The GSMA also warns of a potential 5G divide emerging. It is expected to become the dominant global technology by the end of the decade, with connections passing 1.5 billion by the end of 2023, making it the fastest growing mobile broadband technology to date.

But it is not expected to become predominant across all countries as the investment to make 5G close to universal will not be forthcoming unless revenue growth required to sustain capex levels can be achieved, according to GSMA findings.

For this reason, it is vital that policymakers and the international community make efforts to expand the availability of 4G technology, which is capable of delivering the meaningful connectivity targets set by the ITU.

In fact, the report concludes with a call for governments, mobile operators, and international organizations to collaborate and address all the barriers hindering mobile internet adoption and usage, which include the affordability of handsets and data, and increasing access to mobile broadband networks. ®