A total of 5.16 billion people around the world use the internet at the start of 2023, which is equivalent to 64.4 % of the world’s total population.
Social media headlines
Social media use continues to grow too, with the global user total reaching 4.76 billion in January 2023.
That’s equal to 59.4 percent of all the people on Earth, and indicates that more than 92 percent of internet users now use social media every month.
The number of social media users around the world has increased by 3 percent in the past 12 months.
137 million new users joined social media between January 2022 and January 2023, equating to growth of roughly 375,000 new users every day.
For context, that means social media users are currently growing at a rate of 4.3 new users every single second.
Social media growth rates have slowed over recent months compared with the growth rates that we saw at the peak of COVID-19 lockdowns though, with the global user total only increasing by 0.5 percent between October 2022 and January 2023.
However, this slowdown in growth is perhaps to be expected, especially now that more than three-quarters of “eligible” audiences aged 13 and above already use at least one social media platform each month.
If you want to dig deeper into social media use by platform, you’ll find all of the latest stats here.
Global mobile adoption
Continued growth in mobile use is also helping to fuel increases in digital adoption and activity.
The latest data reveal that more than two-thirds of the world’s total population now uses a mobile phone, with the number of “unique” mobile users reaching 5.44 billion in January 2023.
Meanwhile, the number of cellular connections associated with smartphones continues to increase, and the latest figures indicate that smartphones now account for roughly 4 in 5 of the mobile phones in use around the world today.
