A new report for Facebook says that by the end of 2015 the number of internet users in the world increased from 2.9 billion to 3.2 billion.
According to BBC, the increase in internet users is partly due to affordable data and rising global income.
“At the end of 2014, there were 2.9 billion internet users globally. By the end of 2015, this figure was predicated to have reached 3.2 billion, 43 percent of the world’s population,” said the report titled “State of Connectivity 2015” on Global Access Internet.
“During 2014, lower prices for data and rising global incomes have made mobile data packages of 500MB per month affordable to 500 million more people,” it said.
The report estimates that 1.6 billion people still live outside of mobile broadband coverage, an improvement compared to the 2 billion people who lived outside by the end of 2014.
Though the progress is impressive, the report claims that the developing world is still very far behind the rest of the world in terms of connectivity. Though many urban areas are connected, many rural areas are not, the report said.
“In many countries, women use the internet far less than men. And even if the entire world lived within the range of the necessary infrastructure, nearly a billion people remain illiterate or otherwise unable to benefit from online content,” said Facebook in their report.
Facebook said that it is attempting to create more detailed and useful population maps in order to better distribute access to more than 20 countries using new machine learning techniques. To do this, it will partner with the center of International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University.
These new detailed maps will be free to use by any government, operator, or researcher in order to better guide data-driven decision making.