Young consumers

01/02/2016

According to the 2016 World Development Report prepared by the World Bank, Latin America is the region with the highest proportion of Internet users under the age of 25. In addition, these users are the main consumers of digital content, spending more than 27 minutes on line each time they connect.

The report highlights small Caribbean islands, Chile and Uruguay as the region’s leaders, as these countries have the highest Internet access rates among their population. Likewise, Brazil is among the top five countries with the most Internet users worldwide.

Nevertheless, the World Bank report urges stepping up efforts to connect the poorest households —only one in 10 low-income Latin American and Caribbean households have Internet access.

According to the World Bank report, 98 out of Brazil’s 200 million inhabitants have no access to the Internet, and the situation is similar in Mexico (70 out of Mexico’s 122 million inhabitants are still not connected). Barely 20% of the people in Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala are connected to the Internet.
The report notes that 60% of the world’s population — roughly 4 billion people — don’t have Internet access and that the expansion of digital technology has contributed to widen the gap between rich and developing countries.