Just over half of the world’s population now has access to mobile internet, but the rate of growth is slowing. While some of the rest live in hard-to-reach areas, most are in low- and middle-income countries that have no problem supporting mobile broadband.
These are some of the findings from the State of Mobile Internet Connectivity report for 2024, published by the GSM Association (GSMA), the trade association that represents the interests of mobile network operators.
The 93-page report also looks at the ways people use mobile internet, and considers the main barriers to adoption.
It is claimed that while more people than ever can access the internet via a mobile device, significant digital divides still exist. Those who are digitally excluded are likely to be poor, less educated, rural and female, the report said.
The GSMA says renewed efforts are needed to close this gap, as those without access risk being left behind in an increasingly connected world where the internet is used to deliver crucial services such as healthcare, education, e-commerce and financial services. services.
By the end of 2023, an estimated 57 percent of the world’s population, or approximately 4.6 billion people, would use mobile internet. This is based on data from the GSMA Consumer Survey, the GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index (MCI) and a range of other industry reports.
This figure increased by 160 million people over the year, indicating a slowdown in growth compared to 2015-2021, when the world added more than 200 million people to the connected list each year.
The report puts the total number of people still not using mobile internet at 3.45 billion, but says that 90 percent of these live in an area covered by a network.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, virtually all people without 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 world’s population now lives in areas without mobile broadband coverage, meaning it’s not network availability that’s keeping most unserved people from getting online.
The GSMA says this figure is only a marginal decrease from previous years, with around 350 million people still without a mobile broadband network. These are typically the hardest to reach communities as they are mainly located in rural and sparsely populated areas.
It is perhaps not surprising that Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the lowest levels of connectivity. About 13 percent of the population, or 160 million people, have no network coverage, but as many as 60 percent – or 710 million – do not use mobile internet, despite living in areas where there is coverage.
In regions such as North America and Europe, only 1 percent of the population is not reached by any network, while those who have coverage but do not use it represent 19 and 24 percent of the population in those areas, respectively.
It can be difficult to reach people without coverage. The GSMA report says that almost all increases in mobile broadband coverage in low- to middle-income countries have been achieved by upgrading 2G cell sites. However, more than half of the people without coverage live in areas where there is no existing mobile infrastructure, meaning it would be expensive to connect it.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate that approximately $430 billion in investments would be needed to build the infrastructure needed 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 reforms to boost investment, the report said.
The GSMA also warns of a possible 5G gap. It is expected to become the dominant global technology by the end of this decade, with more than 1.5 billion connections by the end of 2023, making it the fastest growing mobile broadband technology to date.
But it is not expected to prevail in all countries as the investment to make 5G near-universal will not happen unless the revenue growth needed to maintain capital investment can be achieved, the findings show from GSMA.
For this reason, it is critical that policymakers and the international community make efforts to expand the availability of 4G technology capable of achieving the ITU’s meaningful connectivity goals.
In fact, the report concludes by calling on governments, mobile operators and international organizations to work together to address all barriers to mobile internet adoption and use, including affordability of handsets and data, and increasing access to mobile broadband networks. ®
