The Internet Divide in Mexico: Distribution

Technology advances so fast that by the time we finalize a legal framework or regulation, we’re already far behind. From countries like Estonia to the United States, ensuring Internet access for everyone is a huge challenge. Mexico is no different: it has its own background and obstacles to make this possible. In this first entry we’ll review Internet’s distribution challenges within Mexico.

While the number of households with Internet in Mexico grows, the number of households with personal computers does not:

In Spanish: Comparison between percentage of households with Internet vs percentage of households with a computer

This trend is slightly similar for individual users:

In Spanish: Comparison of percentage of users with a computer vs percentage of users with Internet

While the percentage of users with a computer doesn’t grow, there is growth of users with smartphones from 78% to 96% of access:

In Spanish: Title — User internet access percentage per device; Labels — Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, SmartTV, Video Game Console, Other

However, how good have we been in covering Internet needs for all the population? Let’s compare the internet users growth with the growth of Mexico’s population:

In Spanish: Title — Comparison of users with internet vs total population in Mexico; Label: Population (blue), Users with Internet (orange); Vertical axis: Population in millions; Horizontal axis: Year

Looking at both trends, we see that Internet access is growing at a faster rate than its population growth rate. For each year, how does the fraction of people who have Internet vs those who don’t look like?

In Spanish: Percentage of population with Internet vs without per year

From the latest as of the writing of this article, it’s in 2019 that Mexico has a greater fraction of users with Internet, which is a great achievement.

When comparing Mexico’s progress with other countries in America, we see that while it’s not as far as its northern neighbors, it has a better internet coverage than Guatemala and El Salvador. However, this can’t be 100% confirmed since I found out that between OurWorldInData and INEGI there’s a 10% difference in what they report for coverage, which might require further analysis.

Summary

• Internet access has shifted to smartphones
• 2019 was a key milestone in Internet population coverage in Mexico
• Mexico is in the middle when ranking it for its Internet population coverage when comparing it to its neighbors

Internet coverage across Mexico’s population is a great first step in achieving universal access to tools and information. However, does coverage allow its population to use the Internet as a source of information and progress in their lives?

In the next article we take a deeper look at Mexico’s Internet utilization.