Daily Magazine

The ‘state of digital’ in October 2021 Let’s start with a look at the essential headlines for digital use around the world today: More than two-thirds of the world’s population uses a mobile phone today, with global users increasing by almost 100 million (+1.9 percent) over the past 12 months to reach 5.29 billion in October 2021. There are now 4.88 billion internet users around the world, which equates to almost 62 percent of the world’s population. The latest data show that global internet user numbers have increased by more than 220 million (+4.8 percent) over the past year, but with COVID-19 continuing to hamper research, the real figure may be considerably higher. Social media users increased by more than 400 million (+9.9 percent) over the past 12 months to reach 4.55 billion in October 2021. User growth has slowed slightly over the past 3 months, but the global total continues to increase at a rate of more than 1 million new users every single day. For context, the world’s population reached 7.89 billion at the start of October 2021, representing an increase of roughly 80 million people (+1 percent) compared with this time last year. Current growth rates indicate that the global population will exceed 8 billion by mid-2023.