Internet use remains tightly linked to the level development. In Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America, universal usage has been reached or almost reached. Four out of five people in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia were using the Internet, while this was true for three out of four in Northern Africa and Western Asia. In Central and Southern Asia, only just over half of all people were online, while Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) were lagging even further behind at 37% and 33% respectively.
Universal connectivity also remains a distant prospect in least developed countries (LDCs) and landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), where only 35% and 39% of the population were online, respectively. In the Small Island developing states (SIDS), finally, almost two thirds of the population was online, in line with the global average.
Globally, 70 per cent of men were using the Internet, compared with 65 per cent of women. This means there were 189 million more men than women using the Internet in 2024. This difference has been decreasing since 2021, when it stood at 277 million.
Gender parity is deemed to be achieved when the gender parity score, defined as the female percentage divided by the male percentage, is between 0.98 and 1.02. Like overall Internet use, gender parity is closely correlated with the level of development. In recent years, the world has been moving gradually towards gender parity, with the gender parity score increasing from 0.91 in 2019 to 0.94 in 2024. The improvement is also reflected at the level of regions and country groups, with a notable exception: in the group of LDCs, gender parity has actually decreased, from 0.74 in 2019 to 0.70 in 2024. In the SIDS group, the gender parity score also decreased slightly: from a figure slightly above one, indicating that more women than men were using the Internet, it dropped to exactly one in 2024, indicating perfect gender parity. The SIDS are also a notable, positive exception to the strong correlation between gender parity and overall Internet use: they have achieved gender parity even though slightly less than two-thirds of the population use the Internet.