The state of Broadband 2015
New broadband statistics showing uptake increasing dramatically around the world to give opportunities for richer digital experiences
Digital Marketing advances with the increasing provision of digital technologies for consumers. The better the digital technologies, the more opportunities for marketers to utilise them. Broadband is a key enabling technology for advanced in digital experiences, especially since providing compelling digital experiences requires high-quality videos and images which need high bandwidth broadband connections.
We like to keep digital marketers up to date with all the trends that will affect their discipline, and the state of broadband adoption around the world and amongst your audience in particular is an important trend for digital marketers. Uptake is increasing rapidly around the world, as is the shift to mobile. It took 125 years for the world to have one billion people with phone lines, but it only took 5 years for there to be 1 billion mobile broadband subscribers.
These graphs show some of the key trends in the global adoption of broadband, and particularly show how important mobiles are becoming as a way of accessing the Internet.
Fixed Broadband subscribers by region
Asia dominates broadband subscriptions – something for digital businesses to remember when considering expanding into new markets. Africa currently accounts for only 5% of connections, but this is predicted to increase massively over the next decade.
Broadband uptake around the world
Broadband uptake has increased rapidly in both the developed and developing world since 2007. In the developed world it is close to saturation point, whilst there is still a long way to go for the developing world. That said, if current trends continue, it will only take another 8 years for the developing world to have a higher uptake of broadband than the developed world has at current. Expect the vast majority of the world’s population to have access to broadband by the end of the of the decade- which will involve another 3 billion people joining the digital community. What they will add remains to be seen, but there is no doubting that the opportunities will be vast.
Global language use – how many languages do you support?
As billions of more people gain access to the internet, they will want to see content in their language and will be creating content in their native tongue. One only has to look at the number of languages currently offered by leading digital platforms and compare that to the total number of languages in use in the world to understand that the addition of 3 billion more people to the online world will mean many digital platforms will have to get better at providing local language.
Mobile broadband connections accelerate and advance
The number of mobile connections in the world has increased over twelvefold since the new millennium. What is more, the rate of adoption of the latest technologies has increased.
For more insights on global broadband use, you can view the full report from UNESCO
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