How Many People Use the Internet in the United States?
The number of internet users worldwide currently stands at 5.16 billion, after a 1.98% annual increase. But how many of them are in the United States, a country with one of the highest internet speeds?
Here’s a look at how many people use the internet in the United States, broken down by year.
How many people use the internet in America in 2023?
Recent United States internet statistics show there are 311 million people using the internet in the US in 2023. This is a 0.5% increase (1.5 million) from the previous year and represents 91.8% of the US population. Despite the fractional increase, it is a slight acceleration from the 0.3% growth rate registered in 2022, which was the smallest annual growth from the past decade.
The number of Americans using the internet has been growing every year over the past decade. In 2013, there were 227 million internet users. This number rose by around 3% in the following two years and hit 241 million in 2015.
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In 2016, the number of internet users in the US surged by 15.6%, the biggest increase registered from 2013 to 2023, to a total of 279 million. This figure continued to rise, and in 2020, internet users exceeded 300 million for the first time, reaching 305 million.
Growth has been relatively slower over the past two years. In 2021, there were 309 million internet users, after a 1.3% annual increase.
American internet use: time spent and top devices
Knowing how many people use the internet in America isn’t enough to build an effective marketing plan targeting buyers there. You also need to know how they’re accessing the internet and for how long.
Data shows that the average internet user in the US spends six hours and 59 minutes online every day. Of this, nearly half (49.6%) is done on mobile phones, and the other half on computers and/or tablets.
In fact, smartphones are US consumers’ favorite devices to use to go online. Nearly nine in 10 of them use them to connect. This is followed by laptops and/or desktops, used by three in four internet users, and connected televisions, used by almost 40%.