Number of worldwide Internet users hits 2 billion

Andre Yoskowitz
29 Jan 2011 1:39

The UN has stated this week that worldwide Internet users have ballooned to 2 billion, while mobile phone subscriptions have hit 5 billion.
Says the head of the UN's International Telecommunications Union (via AFP):

At the beginning of the year 2000 there were only 500 million mobile subscriptions globally and 250 million Internet users.
By the beginning of this year 2011 those numbers have mushroomed to over five billion mobile users and two billion subscribers to the Internet.

The Internet usage figure jumped from 1.86 billion at the end of 2009 to 2.08 billion at the end of 2010. Cell phone subscriptions increased from 4.66 billion in 2009 to 5.28 billion. Mobile broadband connections exploded to 940 million, while home broadband connections jumped to 555 million.

Internet usage rates have seen the strongest increases (by percentage) in Arab nations, as well as Russia and China.

Global population now exceeds 6.8 billion.