How many Somalis have a phone and use the internet? The numbers since 2000

The two main sources

1. The household survey. The Somalia Integrated Household Budget Survey (SIHBS) of 2022 asked 7,212 households in 17 regions, in towns, villages, nomadic areas and camps for displaced people, about phones, the internet and money. It was run by the Somali National Bureau of Statistics (SNBS, SIHBS 2022 report). It is the best count of people, not SIM cards.
2. The yearly series. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) publishes mobile subscriptions and internet users for every country each year. We took Somalia's series from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, as republished by Our World in Data (World Bank, IT.NET.USER.ZS; Our World in Data, internet users; Our World in Data, mobile subscriptions).

The full yearly table is in the data file somalia-phones-internet-2000-2024.csv on this page.

Phones, 2022 survey

Share of people aged 15 and over who own a mobile phone (SIHBS 2022, Table 10.4):

• Everyone: 85.0 percent. Another 3.5 percent do not own one but can use someone else's.
• Men: 85.6 percent. Women: 84.5 percent.
• Towns: 85.5 percent. Villages: 86.2 percent. Nomadic families: 79.9 percent.
• By schooling: 84.0 percent with no formal schooling, 80.4 percent with primary, 90.7 percent with secondary and 96.2 percent with university.

Phones are also how most Somalis move money. Of phone owners, 81.8 percent had used the phone for a money transaction in the past three months. That rises to 95.3 percent of those with a university education (same source). See Mobile money.

Internet, 2022 survey

Share of people aged 10 and over who used the internet in the past three months (SIHBS 2022, Table 10.5):

• Everyone: 27.6 percent.
• Men: 30.8 percent. Women: 24.7 percent.
• Towns: 34.9 percent. Villages: 19.6 percent.
• By schooling: 14.2 percent with no formal schooling, 71.0 percent with secondary and 87.1 percent with university.

Where people go online: 89.6 percent use a mobile phone and 8.9 percent use a home connection. Workplaces, internet cafes and community centres are hardly used. In nomadic areas, every internet user went online by phone (same source).

Mobile subscriptions since 2000

Mobile subscriptions per 100 people, ITU (World Bank, IT.CEL.SETS.P2):

• 2000: 0.9
• 2005: 4.7
• 2010: 5.3
• 2012: 18.5
• 2013: 40.3
• 2015: 42.3
• 2020: 53.1
• 2023: 54.0

The line jumps between 2011 and 2013. The ITU subscription count is lower than the survey's phone ownership. Subscriptions are reported by operators and divided by the whole population, children included, while the survey counts adults who own a phone.

Internet users since 2000

Share of people using the internet, ITU estimates (World Bank, IT.NET.USER.ZS):

• 2000: under 0.1 percent
• 2005: 1.1 percent
• 2015: 1.8 percent
• 2019: 2.7 percent
• 2020: 15.0 percent
• 2022: 27.6 percent
• 2024: 27.9 percent

The jump from 2.7 percent in 2019 to 15.0 percent in 2020 is a break in the series, not one year of growth. The 2022 figure of 27.6 percent is the same as the SIHBS survey result, so from 2022 the ITU line rests on that survey.

What the numbers show

Somalia's phone networks reached almost every adult within about 20 years, built by private Somali companies (see Telecoms and internet in Somalia). Phones are used more for money than for the internet. The gap between phone ownership (85 percent) and internet use (28 percent) is where most young Somalis still wait to come online, and it is widest for women, rural families and people without schooling.