As the internet grows in popularity, more and more people are using it as a mean of communication and getting information. As two of the largest companies on the World Wide Web, both Google and Facebook are struggling to get their next billion users.
While in many places in this world people have already enjoyed fast and reliable connection, the rest of the world, mainly in less developed nations, are still quite untouched. With developed nations benefiting themselves with high-speed mobile internet, half of the world's mobile users are still using 3G and 4G connections.
While Google and Facebook are getting most of their digital advertising revenue from rich and developed countries with fast data connections, the world where internet connection is still seen as an expensive thing, is like a gold mine ready to be mined to whoever comes first.
While both companies have the expertise and knowledge, the cost is somehow limiting them in doing what they want to do. Despite that, Google spent more than $10 billion on research and development in 12 month (15 percent of the company's revenue), while Facebook spent a third of its revenues just in the last quarter of 2014.
Reaching a billion users is a massive achievement for an online company, even for the likes of those two. But reaching the next billion users seems to be a lot more difficult. Because the growth of both Google and Facebook has outpaced the growth of the internet itself, in order to get more users, neither Google or Facebook have a choice other than helping the internet to grow - the thing they're depending on in order to survive.
Getting their products reliable in those slow connection areas is critical to both companies. Because they're outpacing the growth of the internet, Facebook has slowed its growth to 13 percent a year, and Google is somehow seeing a similar thing. Since desktop computers' growth is slow, mobile is where both companies are aiming.
While Google has released Android One mobile operating system that is designed for low-end smartphones, Facebook has done a similar thing by releasing its own app that works with slow data connection. Furthermore, the social network giant is also active in promoting its Internet.org initiative to reach more users.
The Growing Internet
In 2015, out of 7.3 billion human population, about 40 percent of them (3 billion people) are connected to the internet. That is one massive increase in 20 years prior that in 1995, only 1 percent of the world is enjoying the internet.
The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013. This was when most internet companies are blooming. The first billion internet users was reached in 2005, the second billion in 2010 and the third billion in 2014.
In 2014, about 75 percent of all internet users live in the top 20 countries. The remaining 25 percent are distributed among 178 countries with each representing less than 1 percent of total users.
