Internet Traffic from Mobile Devices (May 2025)

Internet use and mobile use are components of everyday life for billions of people.

In fact, for many, the two now go hand in hand.

With the new “mobile-first” world in mind, here’s a breakdown of what we’ll cover about the current state of website traffic from mobile devices in 2025:

Mobile Device Internet Usage Stats (Top Picks)

• Over 63% of website traffic comes from mobile devices in 2025.
• 96.3% of internet users access the internet using a mobile phone.
• There are approximately 4.32 billion active mobile internet users.
• Africa has the highest proportion of internet traffic from mobile devices – 69.13%.
• There will be over 1 billion 5G connections worldwide by 2025.

What Percentage of Internet Traffic Comes From Mobile Devices?

As of April 2025, people using mobile devices contribute to 63.15% of all website traffic.

Back in 2011, this figure sat at 6.1%. In 2015, this was up to 38.59%. 

The percentage of people accessing the internet via mobile devices has increased year-over-year. Q1 2017 was the first time mobile traffic surpassed traffic from desktop computers.

Here’s a quick look at mobile internet traffic share since December 2014 to December 2024:

Year	Share	Annual Change
Dec 2014	31.79%	–
Dec 2015	38.59%	↑ 21.39%
Dec 2016	50.25%	↑ 30.26%
Dec 2017	52.40%	↑ 4.28%
Dec 2018	49.02%	↓ 6.45%
Dec 2019	53.25%	↑ 8.63%
Dec 2020	55.69%	↑ 4.59%
Dec 2021	54.84%	↓ 1.53%
Dec 2022	60.28%	↑ 9.91%
Dec 2023	57.94%	↓ 3.88%
Dec 2024	63.05%	↑ 8.83%

Over the last five years, website traffic from mobile devices has fluctuated somewhat. However, there has been a steady upward trend.

People access the internet using different devices at different times. A recent survey of internet usage split these into 10 categories (some of which overlap).

The data revealed that around 96.3% of internet users access the internet using a mobile phone of some kind.

By comparison, 61.5% use the more traditional laptop or desktop.

Here's the latest data on internet traffic distribution by device:

Here is a full breakdown of the findings:

Device	Share of Users
Mobile Phone (Any)	96.3%
Smartphone	94.2%
Laptop or Desktop (Any)	61.5%
Personal Laptop or Desktop	53.6%
Connected Television	31.7%
Tablet Device	27.9%
Work Laptop or Desktop	26.8%
Smart Home Device	17.9%
Games Console	11.5%
Feature Phone	4.5%
Virtual Reality Device	4.3%

Cellular data traffic has increased quarter-over-quarter since Q1 2017.

The amount of monthly cellular data consumed by the average smartphone worldwide has grown from 9.68 EB in Q1 2017 to 133.68 EB in Q2 2023.

The monthly cellular data consumed by the average smartphone now stands at 21.1 GB.

Here's how mobile network data traffic has changed over time:

Quarter, Year	Monthly Average Global Mobile Network Data Traffic (Upload and Download) in Exabytes
Q1 2017	9.68 EB
Q2 2017	10.63 EB
Q3 2017	11.69 EB
Q4 2017	13.6 EB
Q1 2018	15.94 EB
Q2 2018	18.37 EB
Q3 2018	21.78 EB
Q4 2018	26.54 EB
Q1 2019	29.02 EB
Q2 2019	32.66 EB
Q3 2019	36.49 EB
Q4 2019	39.56 EB
Q1 2020	45.16 EB
Q2 2020	50.03 EB
Q3 2020	54.79 EB
Q4 2020	58.44 EB
Q1 2021	66.14 EB
Q2 2021	72.2 EB
Q3 2021	77.81 EB
Q4 2021	84.16 EB
Q1 2022	92.75 EB
Q2 2022	100.42 EB
Q3 2022	107.58 EB
Q4 2022	118.21 EB
Q1 2023	126 EB
Q2 2023	133.86 EB
Q3 2023	143.14 EB

Android dominates the share of mobile web traffic with 73.49%. Together with Apple (26.04%), the two make up 99.53% of all mobile web traffic.

Here's a breakdown of mobile web traffic share:

Rank	Device Type	Share	Change Over Previous Year
1	Android	73.49%	+3.01%
2	Apple	26.04%	-2.76%
3	Samsung	0.31%	-0.6%
4	KAI	0.03%	-0.11%
5	Other	0.13%	-0.8%

Sources: StatCounter, DataReportal

Mobile Device Internet Usage by Region

Mobile computing is one of the most significant technology trends of the 21st century.

However, there is a significant disparity between mobile internet traffic usage across the globe.

Africa is the region with the highest proportion of internet traffic coming from mobile devices (69.13%).

On the other end of the spectrum, Oceania is the world’s least mobile-centric region for internet traffic (39.51%).

Here is a more detailed look at the most recent data:

Rank	Region	Share of Mobile Internet Traffic	Difference to Global Average
#1	Africa	69.13%	+ 12.24%
#2	Asia	65.2%	+ 8.31%
-	Global	56.89%	-
#3	South America	51.47%	- 5.42%
#4	Europe	49.19%	- 7.7%
#5	North America	48.49%	- 8.4%
#6	Oceania	39.51%	- 17.38%

Worldwide, Sudan has the highest proportion of mobile internet traffic, 83.92%.

Of the countries surveyed, Russia has the lowest proportion of mobile internet traffic (30.2%), with the majority of citizens accessing the internet via desktop. The next-lowest by proportion are Portugal (34.12%) and Canada (37.71%).

Below are the top and bottom 40 nations surveyed for their country's mobile internet traffic share:

Africa

• Nigeria - 81.43%
• South Africa - 72.59%

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• Egypt - 67.66%
• Morocco - 52.51%

Asia

• India - 75.96%
• Saudi Arabia - 70.82%

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• Hong Kong - 42.27%
• Russia - 30.2%

South America

• Argentina - 57.14%

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• Brazil - 49.49%

Europe

• Republic of Ireland - 58.1%
• Poland - 53.05%

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• Portugal 34.12%
• Russia - 30.2%

North America

• Mexico - 52.88%
• US - 47.57%

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• Canada 37.71%

Oceania

• New Zealand - 41.48%

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• Australia - 40.64%

Taking a look at mobile internet usage from a different angle, at least 20 nations around the world have a mobile internet user penetration rate of over 90%.

And a total of 32 exceed the 85% mark.

The US has a mobile internet penetration rate of 84.37%.

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 nations by mobile internet penetration rate:

Rank	Nation	Continent	Mobile Internet User Penetration
1	Bahrain	Asia	98.2%
2	UAE	Asia	96.06%
3	Kuwait	Asia	95.92%
4	Singapore	Asia	95.41%
5	Canada	North America	95.21%
6	New Zealand	Oceania	94.86%
7	Brunei	Asia	94.11%
8	Denmark	Europe	93.61%
9	Japan	Asia	93.13%
10	UK	Europe	92.85%

Perhaps unsurprisingly, several of the top 10 countries by mobile internet speed also rank in the top 25 for mobile internet penetration:

Rank	Nation	Continent	May 2025 Mobile Internet Speed
1	Qatar	Asia	521.52 Mbps
2	UAE	Asia	512.18 Mbps
3	Kuwait	Asia	331.36 Mbps
4	Bahrain	Asia	253 Mbps
5	Bulgaria	Europe	234.14 Mbps
6	Brazil	South America	215.03 Mbps
7	South Korea	Asia	214.07 Mbps
8	China	Asia	207.92 Mbps
9	Denmark	Europe	204.54 Mbps
10	Saudi Arabia	Asia	198.14 Mbs

Sources: StatCounter, Statista, Speedtest

Mobile Device Activity Data

As technology has evolved, so too have use cases for mobile devices.

Today, mobile devices are used for entertainment, e-commerce, financial management, business meetings, and more.

However, according to a recent survey, the most common use for a mobile device is gaming. In fact, 68% of people report playing video games on their phones.

Here’s a breakdown of the 16 most common tasks that people perform using their smartphones:

Rank	Activity	Share	Activity Type
1	Played a game	68%	Entertainment
2	Listened to music	67%	Entertainment
3	Used social media	63%	Entertainment
4	Watched video, TV, or film	61%	Entertainment
=5	Paid for something bought online	47%	E-commerce/Finance
=5	Accessed bank	47%	Finance
7	Ordered a product	42%	E-commerce
8	Booked food delivery	41%	E-commerce/Health & Wellbeing
9	Used for work	38%	Business
10	Sent money to a friend	35%	Finance
=11	Paid for something using Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc.	33%	E-commerce/Finance
=11	Read a magazine or newspaper	33%	Entertainment
13	Used a medical or fitness service	25%	Health & Wellbeing
14	Booked a taxi ride	22%	Travel
15	Controlled a smart device	20%	Entertainment/Misc.
16	None of the above	3%	N/A

Looking at the above table, it’s clear that e-commerce is among the most popular uses for mobile devices.

Indeed, more than half of the online population (55.4%) are likely to have bought something online in the past month with their mobile device.

The 11 countries with a higher proportion of mobile shoppers than the global average are as follows:

Rank	Country	Region	Share of Online Population Using E-commerce
1	Indonesia	Asia	79.1%
2	Thailand	Asia	74.2%
3	Philippines	Asia	69.6%
4	Malaysia	Asia	68.4%
5	Saudi Arabia	Asia	65.1%
6	China	Asia	64.3%
7	Taiwan	Asia	63.8%
8	Vietnam	Asia	61.4%
9	South Korea	Asia	59.9%
10	India	Asia	57.3%
11	Singapore	Asia	56.9%

Source: Mobile Ecosystem Forum, Data Reportal

5G Adoption Statistics

Mobile internet traffic has grown along with the rollout of 5G. And there are expected to be over 1 billion 5G connections worldwide by the end of 2025.

China is expected to have over 3x more 5G connections than any other country.

In fact, it is predicted that China will have considerably more 5G connections than the US, Japan, Germany, South Korea, the UK, France, and Canada combined.

Here are the predicted country-by-country 5G connections in 2025:

Country	5G Mobile Connections	Share of 5G Mobile Connection
China	866 million	51%
USA	247 million	68%
Japan	138 million	68%
Germany	68 million	58%
South Korea	45 million	73%
UK	42 million	57%
France	35 million	49%
Canada	20 million	51%

Source: GSMA

The Future of Mobile Device Internet Usage

Mobile phone subscriptions have risen year-over-year since 1993 (from only 34 million in 1993 to 8.648 billion today.)

Despite growing at a slower rate in recent years, mobile phone subscriptions are still on the rise.

Here’s a look at the major milestones of worldwide mobile subscriptions over the last 30 years:

Mobile Subscriber Milestone	Year
100 million	1996
500 million	2000
1 billion	2002
2 billion	2005
3 billion	2007
4 billion	2008
5 billion	2010
6 billion	2012
7 billion	2015
8 billion	2019

There are 5.56 billion active internet users. And 96.3% of internet users use a mobile to access it.

According to GWI, of all connected adults, 97.3% use at least one form of social media each month. That accounts for 5.24 billion active social media users. Not surprisingly, this is leading to people spending more time on their phones than ever before.

As both internet use and social media use grow, it only stands to reason that mobile internet traffic will follow suit.

Source: ITU, DataReportal

Key Takeaways

That wraps up our look at the current state of global mobile internet traffic.

Developing nations are helping push the surge in mobile internet use.

And countries with established mobile phone usage are continuing to close in on near-ubiquitous mobile internet use. If you found this report valuable, you may also want to check out our recent outlook on the top cloud computing trends over the next few years. Or, more focused on the world of mobile devices, a list of emerging app development trends.