Over 51% of Indians Still Don’t Use the Internet

India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and it is set to become a major global player over the next few years. In spite of the fact that this is the case, 51.3% of Indians still don’t have reliable access to the internet. This comes up to around 730 million people, which makes India home to the largest population of unconnected people on the planet with all things having been considered and taken into account.

Coming in second is China with just under 375 million unconnected individuals. However, it must be mentioned that only 26.3% of Chinese people lack internet access, which means that China is not doing nearly as badly as India in this metric.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that North Korea is the worst of the lot in terms of unconnected individuals. Almost all of its population has absolutely no access to the internet.

South Sudan is also an especially poor performer, with 93% of its population currently being deprived the internet despite it being such an essential resource. Almost all of the countries with low proportions of internet connections are in Africa, save for two Asian nations namely North Korea and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has failed to provide internet to around 83% of its population, which makes it the second worst performer in Asia with only North Korea performing worse. Afghanistan’s southern neighbor Pakistan also has a serious problem with unconnected folk, with as many as 63.3% of Pakistanis having no way to access the internet.

All in all, an incredibly slow rate of growth for connections means that the UN’s goal of having a fully online world by 2030 does not seem all that possible. The South Asian region will be a particularly tough nut to crack, given that there are nearly a billion unconnected people across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh alone.

Meanwhile, Africa is lagging even further behind, with the current economic turmoil wreaking havoc on the continent’s already fragile economy. The lack of internet might only make things worse.



H/T: Data Portal

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