World population increased at a breathtaking rate in past century. 200 years ago we less than 1 billion people on planet Earth. Today, we count around 7.5 billion. And, along with these indicators, the values of some markets that are obviously always looking for a quantitative development have also increased.

If at the beginning of this millennium there were 6 billion people on worldwide, 100 years along, it’s expected we reach the 10 billion threshold.

Let’s talk about the Internet!

As you can see above, nearly half the world’s population is connected to the Internet in 2016. Again, these figures are on the rise, which means that in 2017 we could surpass the 50% milestone. [source]

• in 2008, only 15% of the world’s population had access to the Internet
• the current rate on Internet penetration worldwide is 9% every year
• this rate slips to 7% if India is discounted

“Internet user growth in the world’s second most populous country accelerated by 40% year-over-year, up from 33% year-over-year in previous reports. The total number of internet users in India rose to 277 million, vaunting the country past the United States to occupy the No. 2 spot in the global user market“. [source]

Internet users/ penetration in Europe

Europe has a population of about 750 million. And over 600 million have an Internet connection. Let’s see below how these numbers are compared to the rest of the world: [source]

• East Asia: 867 million users/ 54% Internet penetration
• South Asia: 480 million users/ 27% Internet penetration
• Africa: 349 million users/ 29% Internet penetration
• West Europe: 345 million users/ 83% Internet penetration
• North America: 315 million users/ 88% Internet penetration
• East Europe: 271 million users/ 64% Internet penetration
• South America: 254 million users/ 60% Internet penetration

The figures for CEE region are far from those of Western Europe but there are clear signs that show a continued growth.

• 56% Internet penetration in Romania means that over 11 million people have access to the Internet
• Greece have a 63% penetration rate, while Hungary reached 71% and Bulgaria 56%

Who’s the fastest on the Internet?

One thing is certain. Even if the figures above do not look very good in terms of penetration rate, in terms of speed, the countries from Central and Eastern Europe are much better represented.

Romania ranks third when it comes to the average download speed, with 62,53 Mbit/ s. Bulgaria ranks 17th in this top (33,66 Mbit/ s) while Hungary is the 20th position (32,26 Mbit/ s). [source]

• the best download speed is in Singapore (97,67 Mbit/ s) followed by Hong Kong with 96,16 Mbit/ s
• with 32,14 Mbit/ s, USA ranks 21th in this top

All this quantitative growth of the penetration rate (plus the download speed) is directly proportional to the revenue growth of the largest companies who operate on the Internet.

Google/ Alphabet has a current market value over $500 billion while Facebook exceeded $320 billion. [source]

Not bad at all for such a young domain as the Internet: prospects for 2017 also look great. And it can’t be otherwise since the engines of the Internet – the social media platforms – continues to gather million monthly users. But this topic deserved to be treated separately.