How many internet users are there in Latin America and the Caribbean? (2008)

I’m constantly asked this question, so a couple of years ago I set out in search of an answer I could feel comfortable giving out. Turns out harder than you’d expect: countries don’t usually provide very comprehensive data of this sort.

The best source I’ve found thus far is the CIA World Factbook, so that’s what I’ve been using for my yearly report over on my Spanish blog. (Here’s the latest). It’s worth noting that the data is not accurate for all countries: stats for some of them were last provided as long as six years ago. Still, it’s better than nothing. Besides, data on the larger countries is fairly recent, so overall I think it’s as good a source as any. (I’ve noted the year of the last available data in a separate column.)

Some interesting highlights:

  • Since I started doing this in 2006, internet penetration in the region has increased from 14.1% to 22.33%.
  • Brazil, the largest country in the region, has more than 25% of its population online. (50m people.)
  • The countries of Central America lag seriously behind: only 11% of the population is online; our total market of internet users is about 4.6m people. (Compare with the Caribbean islands, which have 7.6m people online, even though they have a smaller population than the Central American countries.)

    December 11, 2008 | Archived in Business