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Infographic: The State of the Internet

Last year alone, the number of worldwide Web users increased by 8 percent, driven mostly by Asian countries like the Philippines and India.

December 25, 2012

If you thought everyone and their brother was already connected to the Web, think again. Internet access is still on the rise, as are the number of gadgets we use to consume our favorite websites and apps.

Last year alone, the number of worldwide Web users increased by 8 percent, driven mostly by Asian countries like the Philippines and India, according to an infographic by BackgroundCheck.org.

Of the 2.3 billion global Internet users in 2011, a vast majority of them were from China, which counted 513 million users, compared to the U.S.'s 245 million. Meanwhile, India carried another 121 million, followed by Indonesia, Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

Meanwhile, about 1.1 billion people subscribed to mobile 3G in the U.S. last year, mostly in the U.S. Rounding out the top five were Japan, China, South Korea, and Italy. There were a total of 6 billion mobile cellular connections worldwide last year, from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Many of those are based in developing countries, which "now account for the lion's share of [double-digit] market growth," the ITU said in October.

The 6 billion number doesn't necessarily count individual users, but instead looks at broadband connections, on which people could be using multiple devices, about 953 million of which are smartphones, the BackgroundCheck.com graphic said.

Android phones seem to fare better in the global market, garnering about 250 times as many global shipments as Apple's iPhone.

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