1.8 Billion Mobile Internet Users NEVER use a PC, 200 Million PC Internet Users never use a mobile phone. Understanding the 3.5 Billion Internet Total Audience

As I am working to finish the 2017 Edition of the TomiAhonen Almanac (last days now) I always get into various updates of numbers, that remind me 'I gotta tell this story'.. For example the internet user numbers. We have the December count by the ITU for year 2016, that says the world has now 3.5 Billion internet users in total (up from 3.2 Billion at the end of year 2015). So its no 'drama' to know what is 'that' number. The number of current internet total users is yes, 3.5 Billion, almost half of the planet's total population (47%). 

But the SPLIT of how people use the internet is always a particularly difficult statistical conundrum because some use both a mobile AND a PC, to access the internet and some use exclusively only PC or only mobile. It gets even more messy if your analysts differ on whether a tablet is a 'mobile' (it is not, it is an ultra-portable PC) so some analyst houses will count tablet numbers with their mobile numbers. I've held a consistent view on this issue right from the start, reporting ALL of the ways to count it. And the popular slide is this of course from my Almanac, the Venn Diagram showing the split (this is from last year's Almanac obviously, one-year old data)

 

 

That is what the split looked like a year ago. Most people use both a PC and mobile. Increasingly more people are 'mobile-only' and very few remain who are 'PC only'. And whichever way you want to count that number - you can get different 'numbers' and percentages, based on how you want to tell your story. Which is why the Almanac always showed this diagram so you could see ALL the ways to measure internet use.

So let me give you a freebie sneak preview out of the 2017 Almanac haha... I won't do the actual diagram, but lets just do the top-line numbers. These are some of the most important numbers of the whole ICT industry. Here fresh from the TomiAhonen Almanac 2017 edition for year 2016 final numbers:

INTERNET USE BY TECHNOLOGY IN 2016
Total Internet Users Globally . . . . . . 3.5 Billion
Internet Access Only Mobile . . . . . . 1.8 Billion
Internet Acesss PC and Mobile . . . . 1.5 Billion
Internet Access Only by PC . . .  . . . 0.2 Billion
Source TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared

To further show the splits, here:

MOBILE INTERNET USERS 2016
Only-Mobile users (never use PC or tablet) . . . . . 1.8 Billion
Part-time PC (or tablet) Mobile Internet users . . . 1.5 Billion
Total Mobile Internet Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3.3 Billion (vs 3.5B total Internet users)
Source TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
 

There. Brand new numbers just in time for Barcelona MWC and all the fun this year. The world has 3.5 Billion internet users, and for the first time - more people who access the internet NEVER use a PC than the total number who have access to a PC part time or all the time they go online. And yes, obviously, tablets count as personal computers in this chart as I've explained on this blog and in my books for years. Tablets are not mobiles, they are ultra-portable PCs and they should be counted with the PC population. A phablet-screen smartphone is a mobile phone, it counts as a mobile. And also, to be clear, the above 3.3 Billion who access the internet on a mobile phone part time or always - it includes most of the 3.2 Billion smartphones in use (not quite all) but obviously it also includes a modest number still of 'dumbphones' ie featurephones.

I'll be doing more mobile stats for you when I release the Almanac (hopefully by end of this week) but if you want the early-bird offer, get the 3-for-1 deal here. (Offer expires when the new Almanac is released) Only 10 Euros gets you 3 statistical volumes and the Almanac 2017 will have over 200 pages, over 100 tables & charts and every number you ever wanted in the mobile industry from handsets to messaging to consumers to revenues to networks to apps to advertising to mobile payments. See more of the 3-for-1 offer here.

Comments

[Abdul Muis]

@Tomi

I'm trying to understand this, but it's really hard to imagine 200 million PC user use an internet on PC, but not on phone. I think if someone is savvy enough to use internet on PC, he/she will be able to use internet on phone.

Perhaps is the definition of the internet in the survey that were mis-interpreted? For example, A person might only read e-mail on PC, chatting on PC (perhaps with iRC), doing facebook on PC, but might be use the internet on the phone to play game (that show ads), or listening to internet radio (on wifi).