In 2026, 76 per cent of the world’s population is online, compared with 74 per cent in 2025. This corresponds to 6.3 billion people, up from 6.1 billion last year. Year-on-year growth has increased slightly to 3 per cent, up from 2.5 per cent. While surpassing three-quarters of the global population represents an important milestone on the way to universal connectivity, 2 billion people remain offline.
Internet use remains closely linked to the level of development. High-income countries[1] are nearing universal Internet use with 93 per cent of the population using the Internet.[2] In contrast, only 32 per cent of the population of low-income countries are using the Internet.
In the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Europe and the Americas, between 87 and 93 per cent of the population use the Internet. In the Asia-Pacific and Arab States regions, Internet use stands at 80 and 74 per cent, respectively, close to the global average. In Africa, by contrast, only 42 per cent of the population uses the Internet.
Universal connectivity also remains a distant prospect in least developed countries (LDCs) and landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), where only 41 and 43 per cent of the population are online, respectively. Although in 2026, Internet use grew by an estimated 8.7 per cent in LDCs and 6.5 per cent in LLDCs, faster than in most other groups and regions, connectivity levels in those countries remain well below the global average.
[1] In this publication, regions correspond to the ITU regions, whose composition is available at http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/definitions/regions.aspx. The composition of of the special groups – least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), and small island developing states (SIDS) is available at https://www.un.org/ohrlls/. Country groupings by income are those used in the World Bank classification, available at https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519 .
[2]Taking into account that some people may never want to connect, as a matter of convention universality is taken to mean an Internet penetration rate of at least 95 per cent.