Country differences in internet usage
The number of online users in the Asia-Pacific region exploded in 2022, reaching over 2.6 billion. Half of these users were from China and India. Despite this massive increase in internet users, there is still a significant share of the population in some countries that are excluded from the digital world. Mobile internet coverage gaps of one to ten percent were remaining in some countries such as Pakistan and Indonesia. However, the biggest gaps were in usage – approximately two-thirds of the population in Bangladesh and Pakistan were not connected to the mobile internet as of 2021.Along with access to the internet, freedom of use is also highly varied among Asia-Pacific countries. Various restrictions and unspoken rules are in place for internet use in many countries. China was one of the countries with the lowest internet freedom, while Taiwan had the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. Hong Kong had exceptionally high international bandwidth per internet user as a global hub, while the likes of China and Mongolia were more self-contained with low international bandwidth rates.
