The steadily growing number of Internet users has been reflected in a steep increase in the volume of online content, the report said.

Social media applications are contributing significantly to driving Internet use, as more and more people create, share and upload content onto social sites.

According to the report, a handful of giants have emerged as major global content providers. For example, more than 100 hours of video content are uploaded every minute on YouTube, which is now the world’s largest video file-sharing service with services in 61 countries and over one billion unique visitors every month, while Wikipedia, the largest and most widely used online encyclopaedia, now features over 30 million articles in 287 languages.

Developed countries dominate Internet content production, with domain-name registrations from the developed world accounting for 80% of all new registrations in 2013, and registrations from Africa accounting for less than 1%, the report noted.