The number of Internet users is likely to continue growing for some more years, up to an estimated saturation point of 3 billion users. Data from International Telecommunications Union (ITU) covering the period 1990-2010 reveals that growth has been exponential until 2008, when volume reached 1.6 billion, after which it started to slowly decelerate.
Our forecast (compare with last forecast) suggests that Internet users will approach the plateau of 3 billion as soon as 2020. Such a scenario makes sense considering the currently prevailing Internet habits — 3 billion users is equivalent to roughly one Internet subscription per home, which is a sensible conjecture.
However, one should not exclude the possibility that mobile Internet services, in other words access to Internet through cellular phones or other mobile devices, could cause the surge of the number of Internet users, the same way mobile phone caused the explosion of the number of telephone subscribers.
Internet Users | ||
Year | Number | |
| Actual | Forecast ¹ | |
| 1990 | 2.6401 | 24.826 |
| 1991 | 4.4 | 32.601 |
| 1992 | 7 | 42.775 |
| 1993 | 10 | 56.064 |
| 1994 | 21 | 73.377 |
| 1995 | 40 | 95.859 |
| 1996 | 74 | 124.932 |
| 1997 | 117 | 162.322 |
| 1998 | 183 | 210.071 |
| 1999 | 275 | 270.508 |
| 2000 | 390 | 346.140 |
| 2001 | 489 | 439.460 |
| 2002 | 616 | 552.614 |
| 2003 | 721 | 686.954 |
| 2004 | 867 | 842.508 |
| 2005 | 1,023 | 1017.498 |
| 2006 | 1,151 | 1208.069 |
| 2007 | 1,374 | 1408.415 |
| 2008 | 1,575 | 1611.374 |
| 2009 | 1,805 | 1809.408 |
| 2010 | 2,044 | 1995.687 |
| 2011 | 2164.965 | |
| 2012 | 2314.041 | |
| 2013 | 2441.737 | |
| 2014 | 2548.551 | |
| 2015 | 2636.135 | |
| 2016 | 2706.784 | |
| 2017 | 2763.024 | |
| 2018 | 2807.326 | |
| 2019 | 2841.933 | |
| 2020 | 2868.793 | |
| ¹ Logistic growth function | ||
Source: ITU International Telecommunications Union
