Number of people with internet access to pass 3 billion in 2015

PanARMENIAN.Net - The number of people with access to internet is expected to pass 3 billion next year, according to estimates.

As Digital Spy reports citing eMarketer, 42.4% of the world's population will be online in 2015, marking a 6.2% increase.

By 2018 it predicts that almost half of the world will be internet users, in the region of 3.6 billion people.

Much of the growth will come from emerging markets which will have more cheap internet-enabled devices available to them.

Companies such as Google have already launched initiatives such as Project Loon, which aims to deliver internet access via floating balloons.

"Inexpensive mobile phones and mobile broadband connections are driving internet access and usage in countries where fixed internet has been out of reach for consumers, whether that's due to lack of infrastructure or affordability," the company's senior forecasting analyst Monica Peart said.

"While highly developed nations are nearly saturated in terms of internet users, there's significant room for growth in emerging markets; for example, India and Indonesia will each see double-digit growth in each year between now and 2018."