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Mobiles to increase Internet connectivity in 2016

By Bankole Orimisan
13 January 2016   |   2:08 am
THERE are indications that more than two billion people globally will use mobile devices to connect to the Internet in 2016.     This is according to a recent report by market research firm IDC, which noted that overall, an estimated 3.2 billion people (or 44 per cent of the world’s population) will have access to…

Mobile-devices

THERE are indications that more than two billion people globally will use mobile devices to connect to the Internet in 2016.
   
This is according to a recent report by market research firm IDC, which noted that overall, an estimated 3.2 billion people (or 44 per cent of the world’s population) will have access to the Internet this year.
   
IDC said growth in Internet access was evident across the world, but some countries are seeing particularly rapid growth. China, India and Indonesia lead the way and will account for almost half of the gains in access globally over the course of the next five years, it adds.
   
The combination of lower-cost devices and inexpensive wireless networks are making accessibility easier in countries with populations that could not previously afford them.
   
The firm added that  the global mobile Internet user base is forecast to grow at 2 per cent annually through 2020, unless significant new methods of Internet access are introduced.
   
Efforts by Google, SpaceX and Facebook, among others, to make the Internet available to the remaining four billion people via high altitude planes, balloons, and satellites are under way, it notes.
   
However, it remains unclear how successful these endeavours will be and when they will be operational at scale.
   
“Over the next five years, global growth in the number of people accessing the Internet exclusively through mobile devices will grow by more than 25 per cent per year, while the amount of time we spend on them continues to grow. This change in the way we access the Internet is fuelling explosive growth in mobile commerce and mobile advertising,” says Programme Director of Strategic Advisory Service at IDC, Scott Strawn.

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