GSMA and Huawei Report: 3.1 Billion People Covered by Mobile Broadband Still Offline, Driven by Digital Literacy Gaps

GSMA Intelligence, working with Huawei, released 'Bridging the Divide: Enhancing Digital Literacy in the AI Era' on September 10, 2026 at UNESCO's Digital Learning Week (Paris, September 8–11). The report finds that 96% of the world's population has mobile broadband coverage, yet 3.1 billion of the people within that footprint — 38% of the covered population — remain offline, and identifies digital literacy, not coverage, as the primary barrier. It estimates closing the usage gap could add $3.5 trillion to global GDP between 2023 and 2030, with over 90% of the gains flowing to low- and middle-income countries. The report also frames AI as a double-edged tool: voice interfaces and multilingual, image/audio-based applications can help low-literacy users bypass text input, but only if paired with AI-safety and data-privacy literacy — recommending policymakers, telcos and vendors treat AI literacy as critical infrastructure.