Around the world, new mobile internet subscribers are plateauing

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

When Facebook hit 1 billion users in 2012, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that when it comes to getting another billion users, “The big thing is obviously going to be mobile.” In an interview at the time, Zuckerberg told Bloomberg, “As more phones become smartphones, it’s just this massive opportunity.”

Clearly, he was correct. A recent survey from Global System for Mobile Communications Association Intelligence, or GSMA, the research wing of a UK-based organisation that represents mobile operators around the world, found that 4.6 billion people across the globe are now connected to mobile internet – or roughly 57% of the world’s population.

Now, the rate of new mobile internet subscriber growth is slowing. From 2015 to 2021, the survey consistently found over 200 million coming online through mobile devices around the world each year. But in the last two years, that number has dropped to 160 million.

Rest of World analysis of that data found that a number of developing countries are plateauing in the number of mobile internet subscribers. That suggests that in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Mexico, the easiest populations to get online have already logged on and getting the...

Read more