Despite expanding coverage, the growth of mobile internet use is stagnating due to affordability issues, supply-chain pressures, and persistent inequalities, threatening to leave billions offline.
The mobile internet is still expanding, but not fast enough to keep pace with the scale of the digital divide. The GSMA’s 2026 State of Mobile Internet Connectivity report says 4.8 billion people, or 59% of the world’s population, were using mobile internet by the end of 2025. That was an increase on the previous year, yet the pace of growth slowed, with just 160 million new users added in 2025 compared with 190 million in 2024. The report’s central warning is that better networks are no longer translating into proportionate adoption.
The coverage problem is increasingly less about signal and more about access. GSMA data shows mobile broadband now reaches 97% of the global population, while more than 90% of the 3.4 billion people who remain offline live inside that coverage area. In other words, most of those who are still disconnected are not beyond network reach; they are unable to make practical use of the service. The GSMA also says the usage gap, people who are covered but do not go online, stands at 3.1 billion, or 38% of the global population.
Affordability remains the main brake on adoption, and the pressure is worsening. The GSMA says an entry-level smartphone costs around 44% of monthly income for the poorest fifth of people in low- and middle-income countries, rising to 76% in sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation has linked this to a broader supply-chain squeeze: as AI infrastructure drives demand for high-bandwidth memory, chipmakers are diverting production away from the lower-cost components used in basic phones. According to the GSMA, rising memory prices are already pushing up handset prices and eroding access at the bottom of the market.
That shift is visible in the market. The GSMA says global smartphone shipments are on course for their steepest annual decline on record in 2026, with the sub-$100 segment expected to suffer the sharpest fall. The organisation argues that this is not a routine cyclical dip but a structural effect of competition for semiconductor capacity, with entry-level devices bearing the brunt. For consumers in poorer households, the result is straightforward: the cheapest route into the internet is becoming more expensive just as the remaining unconnected population is hardest to reach.
The divide is also uneven in social and geographic terms. The GSMA reports that women in low- and middle-income countries are now 12% less likely than men to use mobile internet, an improvement from 14% the year before, but women still account for 58% of the adult usage gap. Rural adults remain 28% less likely to be connected than their urban counterparts, a gap the report says has widened. GSMA Director General Vivek Badrinath said the surge in memory prices makes the risk “stark and urgent”, while the organisation warns that preserving affordability for entry-level smartphones will require action well beyond the telecoms sector if the next generation of users is not to be priced out before it ever gets online.
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