Hong Kong web design firm just released an infographic on how VPNs get used, and the results are… well, decide for yourself.
First, VPNs are a $20.6bn industry, forecast to double in size over the next four years. But they don’t get a lot of use. Here’s what the number of VPN users looks like worldwide:
Looks like a huge number of people – until you look at the global digital population, the number of people who regularly use the internet. That figure? 4.1 billion. There are more people on mobile social than using a VPN, by a factor of nine:
So the number of VPN users is pretty low, even though the number of VPN subscribers is relatively much higher.
Yet, VPN usage has grown rapidly over the last few years,
But what are people actually using their VPNs for?
Overwhelmingly, the main reason to use a VPN is to access georestricted material. For VPN users, it’s not about privacy – just 18% of VPN users switch on to stop the state tracking them, and just 31% use their VPN to keep anonymity while browsing.
For VPN users, getting a VPN is basically about Netflix.
