In bridging the gap between the advanced world and advancing countries, the Internet has certainly contributed its pros to ensuring that the ICT gap between these countries keeps reducing at a faster pace. To futher confirm this, three African countries – Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa have made the list of Top 25 World Countries by Internet Users ( 2013 – 2018).
Market research firm, eMarketer has released a new data stating the total number of internet users around the world would be estimated around 2.89 Billion users by the end of 2014 and would continue to grow over the next five years. This correlates with the 3 billion users the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) projects before the end of 2014.
Nigeria ranks 1st in Africa and 10th in the world according to the report having 57.7 million users by the end of 2014 and expected to rise to 84.3 million by the end of 2018. Egypt lies 2nd in Africa and lies 17th in the world having 36 million users by the end of 2014 and a further 47.4 million users by the end of 2014. South Africa comes 3rd in Africa having 20.1 million users and 30.9 million users by the end of 2015 making it the 25th country in the world.
The impressive growth can be attributed to the higher rate of mobile penetration which has given rise to more internet access in these regions. Mobile penetration has risen by 80 percent and internet usage on mobile is expected to increase in 20-fold in the next five years.
China ranks first in the world with 643.6 million users by the end of 2014 and a further 777 million expected by the end of 2018. The United States of America is at second spot in the world with 252.9 million users with it expected to rise to 274.1 million users by 2018. India comes third with 215.6 million users expected by the end of 2014 with it expected to rise to 346.3 million users by the end of 2018.
Countries like Russia, Brazil, UK, South Korea, Canada, Argentina and Spain also make the list of Top 25 World Countries by Internet Users.
