See what a high band reads like.

P1The table shows the percentage of households with internet access in four countries in 2010 and 2020, together with the change in percentage points over the decade.

P2Overall, South Korea already had near-universal access in 2010 and changed very little by 2020, while Brazil and South Africa recorded the largest gains despite starting from far lower bases.

P3South Korea's household internet coverage was 96% in 2010, the highest of the four countries, and rose only marginally to 99% by 2020, a gain of 3 percentage points. The UK started at 73% and reached 96% by 2020, an increase of 23 percentage points, bringing it close to South Korean levels.

P4By contrast, Brazil and South Africa both began the decade with considerably lower rates and achieved substantially greater gains. Brazil's access rate rose from 27% to 83%, an increase of 56 percentage points, which matched South Africa's improvement exactly. South Africa, however, started from a much lower base of just 9%, climbing to 65% by 2020. Although the two countries shared an identical percentage-point change, South Africa's 2020 figure remained 18 points below Brazil's, indicating that the gap between them persisted even after a decade of equal growth. The data overall suggest that developing countries were closing the internet access gap with more advanced economies, though not yet fully bridging it.