Technology · Issue 01
Six billion people are now on the internet
ITU Facts and Figures 2025: 6 billion people, 74% of the species, used the internet this year. In 2000 it was about 400 million. A quarter of humanity is still offline — and that quarter is now the story.
- Internet users, 2025 (ITU)
- 6bn
- Share of world population
- 74%
- 2024, revised
- 5.8bn
- Still offline
- 2.2bn
The S-curve is in its last steep bit
ITU, 17 November 2025: 6 billion people used the internet in 2025, 74% of the world, up from a revised 5.8 billion in 2024. Two hundred and forty million new users in a year. In 2000 the same agency was counting about 400 million. Twenty-five years is a civilisation-scale onboarding. The remaining 2.2 billion are not a rounding error. They are rural, female, older, and African at rates that would have described the whole world in 2005.
Distribution tech, in people rather than terabits
Pair this with Cables under the sea (1,835 Tbps) and Eleven thousand birds. The users are the demand; the cables and the constellation are the pipes. A 6 billion user-base is why a subsea cut is a political event and why Starlink has a customer, not just a launch cadence. The next billion is harder: it needs power (730 million still lack electricity), a phone, and a reason. That is an African grid story wearing an ITU badge.
The long view is saturation in the rich world, a buildout elsewhere
Rich-world internet is a replacement cycle and an attention market. The increment is in the last quarter of humanity. Own the pipes that reach them, the payments that run on the pipe, and do not confuse 6 billion users with 6 billion people who can pay a Western ARPU.
Investing lens
Horizon 5–15 years · Educational, not advice
Six billion is saturation in the G20 and a last-mile problem everywhere else. Own subsea, spectrum, satellite and the payment rails. Do not own a user-growth story in markets that are already at 90%.
Where the map points
- Subsea and landing rights on growing routes
- LEO broadband where terrestrial will not go
- Mobile money and remittance rails in the last quarter
- Avoid rich-world social ARPU as if it were user growth
What can break it
- ITU ‘users’ are not daily actives
- A 2.2 billion offline residual that does not monetise on a Western model
- Politics of spectrum and landing licences
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimaryInternational Telecommunication Union2025-11-17Facts and Figures 2025
6 billion people online in 2025 (74% of world population), up from 5.8 billion in 2024. 2.2 billion remain offline.
- 02CorroboratedTeleGeography2025-12-17What to Know About Transport Networks in 2026
~15 new subsea cables in 2025 ($3.2bn). Nearly 40 in 2026 (~$6bn), highest in a decade. 2026 map: 694 systems.
Keep reading
1,835 terabits under the ocean
International internet bandwidth hit 1,835 Tbps in 2025, up 23%. Nearly 40 new submarine cables are due in 2026 — about $6 billion of steel and glass, the busiest year in a decade. AI training may be in a desert. Inference still crosses an ocean.
1,835 Tbps
International bandwidth, 2025
Eleven thousand satellites, one operator
As of 27 August 2026 there are 11,102 Starlink satellites in orbit — 11,087 of them working. The first 60 went up in May 2019. This is how broadband is being distributed when fibre is slow and a coastline is a chokepoint.
11,102
Starlink satellites in orbit, 27 Aug 2026
1.5 billion people left extreme poverty
The World Bank’s current line: 2.3 billion people lived on less than $3 a day in 1990. In 2025 the number is 831 million. That is the largest welfare improvement in history, and it has almost stopped.
831m
People in extreme poverty, 2025