Almost half of the world is now online. Now, a report [PDF] from the Pew Research Center looks further into internet use, revealing that it continues to grow in developing countries while remaining high in advanced economies.
To arrive at its conclusions, Pew examined a 2017 survey it conducted among more than 40,000 people across 37 countries. It then supplemented that with an analysis of a 2018 survey of more than 2,000 Americans and a 2016 survey of more than 3,000 Chinese respondents.
As the report details, there continues to be a major divide in internet use between more mature economies and developing countries. However, that gap appears to be closing as emerging countries rapidly adopt the internet. For example, across the 19 emerging and developing economies surveyed, a median 64% of respondents reported accessing the internet at least occasionally or owning a smartphone. That represents a 50% rise from a median average of 42% reporting internet access between 2013 and 2014.
Similar patterns emerge with smartphone ownership and social media usage, as emerging and developing economies grow in usage to close the gap with advanced economies, where these figures have plateaued. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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