New statistics show that over half of the world’s population is now using the Internet. The 2017 Q2 Global Digital Snapshot Report on social media and digital trends released by Hootsuite, a social media management platform, and We Are Social, a social media agency, found that more than 3.8 billion people around the world now use the internet. This means that global internet penetration is 51%. The report’s author flips the number and points out that people who don’t use the Internet are now in the minority.
How are these people getting online? The report says that the total number of unique mobile users now stands at 4.96 billion. The use of a mobile phone is now ‘normal’ around the world. Almost 66% of the entire global population regularly uses a mobile phone. More and more of these users now own a smartphone too, and the latest data suggest that more than half of the world’s population now uses one of these powerful devices.
2017 Global Digital Snapshot Report by Hootsuite
The rapid spread of smartphones has led to significant growth in the number of mobile internet users. The number of people around the world accessing the internet via mobile reached almost 3.4 billion during early April 2017 according to the author.
Additionally, 93% of all internet users now go online via mobile devices (phones or tablets), and with the majority of new internet users now ‘phone first’, mobile’s share is likely to increase even more.
With all of this increased access, We are Social, writes that global social media users total to more than 2.9 billion users. This means that social media users are still increasing at a rate of more than 1 million per day – that’s 14 new users every second.
2017 Global Digital Snapshot Report by Hootsuite
The article observes that mobile social media continues to see the fastest growth across all our key data points. In the past 3 months, mobile social media users grew by more than 1.6 million new users every day. The total number of people around the world accessing social media via mobile devices now stands at just under 2.7 billion, representing global penetration of 36%.
Where do all of these mobile social media users go? Of course, they go to Facebook (FB). The research says that Facebook dominates the social media world. The latest data suggests that the world’s favorite social platform adds more than a million new users every day.
2017 Global Digital Snapshot Report by Hootsuite
Asia is the center of Facebook’s growth. Much of that growth came from India. With almost 250,000 new users in the country every day, the author speculates there’s a good chance that India will overtake the US to become Facebook’s most active market by July 2017. Bangkok is Facebook’s most active city, with roughly 30 million people in Thailand’s capital using the platform.
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It should be obvious to any marketer that firms need to remake their customer engagement plans and implement real-time interaction with their customers. Simon Kemp, We Are Social said.
“Half of the world’s population is now online, which is a testament to the speed with which digital connectivity is helping to improve people’s lives … Given this latest data, it’s probably time for us to stop referring to social as new media, and integrate it more seamlessly into our day-to-day activities.”
I think Mr. Kemp is too optimistic when he says that “digital connectivity is helping to improve people’s lives.” Followers of the Bach Seat know that too much social media is bad for you.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.