A third of the world's population is still deprived of access to the Internet, although the number of people connected is at its highest levels, according to the latest statistics published by a United Nations body on Tuesday.
About 100 million people have been connected to the Internet since last year's census conducted by the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency for information and communications technologies.
This means that 67% of the world's population, or 5.4 billion people, are currently connected to the Internet.
However, another 2.6 billion people are still deprived of the Internet.
“This improvement in connectivity is another step in the right direction,” ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin said in a statement. “We will not rest until we live in a world where meaningful connectivity becomes a living reality for everyone, everywhere.”
She added that continued efforts are needed "to achieve comprehensive and meaningful global connectivity by 2030."
The areas most in need of increased Internet connectivity are in low-income countries. The latest global estimates confirm that the double-digit growth in connectivity observed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was short-lived.
“Current trends are not strong enough to ensure the goal of comprehensive and meaningful global connectivity by 2030,” the International Telecommunication Union said in a report Tuesday.