Looking to book a Caribbean holiday based on which destination has the highest penetration of phone and Internet usage? How about relocating to the region or maybe even launching or expanding your business in the Caribbean? Well check out our infographic below which provides a snapshot of the Caribbean phone and Internet marketplace using data from a number of sources including the 2014 International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Report.
In total more than 15 million people in the Caribbean had reliable Internet access by the end of 2013, representing 35% of the 43 million people living in the region. The island of Bermuda leads with 95% Internet penetration, followed by St. Kitts and Nevis with 80%, and the Dutch island of Aruba which has 79%. 75% of the population in Barbados have Internet access, while the Cayman Islands and Puerto Rico both have 74%. They were followed by the Bahamas with 72%, Anguilla with 65%, Trinidad & Tobago 64%, and Antigua & Barbuda 63%.
Meanwhile, the social networking site Facebook now has 6.7 million users in the Caribbean, representing 15% of the region’s residents. The Dominican Republic recorded the highest number of Facebook users with 2.8 million, however the tiny island of Curacao has the highest penetration of Facebook users with 59% of its 146,000 population.
In the mobile phone market, subscriptions grew to 29 million subscribers in 2013, representing a 42% growth since 2008. No surprise that islands with larger populations like Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Jamaica lead with the number of people with mobile phone subscriptions. It should be noted that during this same five-year period of growth for mobile phones, landline subscribers declined by 4% to 4.56 million, representing just 11% penetration in the region. We suspect this decline is due to the increasing cost for landline subscriptions and also just the preference by most to be contactable on the go.
