“DataReportal recently released its Digital 2025: Global Overview Report that looks at the state of the Internet worldwide.

The world population at the end of 2024 was 8.20 billion, up 70 million from a year earlier, a growth rate of 0.9%.

There were 5.78 billion unique mobile subscribers in January, up 112 million (2.0%) over a year earlier.

5.56 billion people are using the Internet at the start of 2025, up 136 million (2.5%) from a year earlier. This means more than two-thirds of the people on the planet are connecting to the web.

The average landline broadband speeds worldwide were 95.1 Mbps down and 51.5 Mbps up. The average worldwide cellular data speeds were 61.5 Mbps down and 11.6 Mbps up.

5.24 billion people used social media, up 200 million (4%) from a year earlier.

The most popular social media sites in the world are:

• YouTube 2.53 billion
• Facebook 2.28 billion
• Instagram 1.74 billion
• TikTok 1.59 billion
• LinkedIn 1.20 billion
• Facebook Messenger 947 million
• Snapchat 709 million
• Reddit 605 million
• X 586 million
• Pinterest 340 million

The most popular uses of the Internet (percentage of people who use each function)

• 1 – Chat and Messaging 94.5%
• 2 – Social Media 94.4%
• 3 – Search 82.3 %
• 4 – Shopping 74.9 %
• 5 – Email 75.0%
• 6 – Location services / Maps 55.3%
• 7 – Music 47.7%
• 8 – Entertainment 46.0%
• 9 – Weather 43.6%
• 10 – News 41.4%”