Over half of the global population now owns a smartphone, GSMA ©

According to the GSMA’s annual State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report 2023 (SOMIC) published in October 54% of the global population that is around 4.3 billion people owns a smartphone. 49% of the global population was using mobile internet on a smartphone.

The most astounding is that 38% of the world’s population – 3 billion people – are not using mobile internet despite living in areas with mobile broadband coverage. To motivate these people to use mobile internet is a huge challenge for mobile operators.

5G coverage is growing. At the end of 2022, 32% of the global population – equivalent to 2.6 billion people – were covered by a 5G network. Average download speeds have almost tripled in the last five years, from 12.0Mbps in 2017 to 33.9Mbps in 2022. In addition, the affordability of data continues to improve across most regions. The latter stimulates permanent growth of data consumption.