How Much Data is Generated Every Day (2024)

In today’s fast-moving digital world, an extensive amount of data is created on a daily basis. Data is created through a variety of areas such as sending out emails, using social media apps, watching videos, online shopping, and much more. Almost, 328.77 million terabytes of data is getting created per day. The figures of data created keep growing at an ever-increasing rate. 

In this article, we are going to take a look at the statistics related to the amount of data created daily in 2024 and understand its impact on the world.

Top Statistics of the Data created daily 

• 328.77 million terabytes of data are created every day. 
• 181 zettabytes of data is expected to be generated by 2025. 
• Around 53.72% of the internet data traffic is created through videos. 
• A 480p video on Twitch requires 0.405GB and 0.54GB of data per hour 
• 2 billion videos are being watched by users on Twitter every day. 
• It takes Kilobytes of data to share a message on WhatsApp. 
• Around 361 billion of emails are sent out every day in 2024. 
• An equivalent of 0.0001335 MB of data is used to send out one text message. 

Amount of Data Created Annually to Reach 180 Zettabytes in 2025

A few years ago, [IDC] made headlines by predicting that the total amount of digital data created worldwide would mushroom from 4.4 zettabytes in 2013 to 44 zettabytes by 2020. Now, IDC believes that by 2025 the total will hit 180 zettabytes. The astounding growth comes from both the number of devices generating data as well as the number of sensors in each device… approximately 11 billion devices connect to the Internet now. The figure is expected to nearly triple to 30 billion by 2020 and then nearly triple again to 80 billion five years later.

How much data is Generated every day in 2024? 

Currently, 328.77 million terabytes of data are getting created every day in 2024. 

There is a constant rise in the amount of data generated, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide on a daily basis. In 2020, the numbers reached 64.2 zettabytes, and the global data creation is expected to reach 180 zettabytes by 2025.

Unit of Measurement	Data Generated
Zettabytes	0.33
Exabytes	328.77
Petabytes	328,767.12
Terabytes	328.77 million
Gigabytes	328.77 billion
Megabytes	328.77 trillion
Kilobytes	328.77 quadrillion
Bytes	328.77 quintillion

Around 1200 Petabytes of Data is stored and shared by the users in various digital media giants 

Digital media giants such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and more are utilized by users on a large scale. The rise of smartphone usage has given rise to such platforms as well for a variety of reasons such as online surfing, shopping, browsing, and more. Today, around 1200 petabytes of data are shared and stored by users in these digital media platforms. 

Data Creation Growth Over the Years 

There has been a massive rise in the number of data created annually. Back in 2010, the annual data generated was 2 zettabytes. However, in 2023 the total amount of annual data generated was 120 zettabytes. Apparently, 90% of the world’s data was created in the last 2 years. Over the last 13 years, the estimate has witnessed an increase of 60x since 2010. It is predicted the numbers will hit 181 zettabytes by 2025 with an increase of 150%. 

Below we have mentioned a table showcasing the amount of data created from 2010 to 2025. 

Year	Data Generated	Change Over Previous Year	Change Over Previous Year (%)
2010	2 zettabytes	–	–
2011	5 zettabytes	? 3 zettabytes	? 150%
2012	6.5 zettabytes	? 1.5 zettabytes	? 30%
2013	9 zettabytes	? 2.5 zettabytes	? 38.46%
2014	12.5 zettabytes	? 3.5 zettabytes	? 38.89%
2015	15.5 zettabytes	? 3 zettabytes	? 24%
2016	18 zettabytes	? 2.5 zettabytes	? 16.13%
2017	26 zettabytes	? 8 zettabytes	? 44.44%
2018*	33 zettabytes	? 7 zettabytes	? 26.92%
2019*	41 zettabytes	? 8 zettabytes	? 24.24%
2020*	64.2 zettabytes	? 23.2 zettabytes	? 56.59%
2021*	79 zettabytes	? 14.8 zettabytes	? 23.05%
2022*	97 zettabytes	? 18 zettabytes	? 22.78%
2023*	120 zettabytes	? 23 zettabytes	? 23.71%
2024*	147 zettabytes	? 27 zettabytes	? 22.5%
2025*	181 zettabytes	? 34 zettabytes	? 23.13%

Source: Statista, Bernard Marr & Co.

Amount of Data Created by Category 

Global Data Traffic is vastly filled with video content as it is responsible for 53.72% of the traffic since various social media platforms worldwide are filled with video content on a large scale. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube are completely based on video content and they continue to keep growing their user base each year. 

Similarly, other popular platforms such as Facebook have evolved over the years, and currently, 51% of the content shared on Facebook is video-based content. Currently, the top three categories that make up the majority of the internet data traffic are Video (53.72%), Social (12.69%), and Gaming (9.86%). 

Below we have mentioned a table showcasing the data traffic created by different categories:

Category	Proportion of Internet Data Traffic
Video	53.72%
Social	12.69%
Gaming	9.86%
Web browsing	5.67%
Messaging	5.35%
Marketplace	4.54%
File sharing	3.74%
Cloud	2.73%
VPN	1.39%
Audio	0.31%

Around 99,000 Google searches are made every second 

There is no doubt that Google is one of the most used search engines among individuals globally. Google processes almost 99,000 searches every second as of January 2022 which makes 8.5 billion Google searches every day roughly. 

Two trillion Google searches were made by the end of 2021 

Google is one of the most popular search engines worldwide that is utilized by people on a large scale for their everyday internet browsing. It has a market share of 91% and about 2 trillion Google searches were made by the users in 2021 alone. Apparently, 6 billion searches are made on the search engine every day. 

As of January 2021, there were 4.95 billion active social media users globally 

According to data by Data Reportal show it was stated that there were 4.95 billion users accessing social media platforms as of January 2021. Which is about 62.5% of the entire world population. 

Snapchat requires 1MB of data to send a Snapshot on the platform 

Snapchat is a popular application that is utilized by users to send out images or snapshots and messages to their friends and families. This platform utilizes 1 MB of data to send out a snapshot of the platform. To send 24 snapshots users will require 24 MB.

Data Created based on Media Type 

According to data collected from April 2022, around 231.4 million emails are sent out every minute worldwide, while 333.22 billion emails are sent in a 24-hour span. Meanwhile, 16 million texts are sent per minute with 24.04 billion texts in 24 hours. Below we have mentioned a table showcasing the user-generated internet content statistics: 

Type of Media	Amount per Minute	Amount per Day
Emails sent	231.4 million	333.22 billion
Crypto purchased	90.2 million	129.89 billion
Texts sent	16 million	24.04 billion
Google searches	5.9 million	8.5 billion
Snaps shared on Snapchat	2.43 million	3.5 billion
Pieces of content shared on Facebook	1.7 million	2.45 billion
Swipes on Tinder	1.1 million	1.58 billion
Hours streamed	1 million	1.44 billion
USD spent on Amazon	443,000	637.92 million
USD sent on Venmo	437,600	630.14 million
Tweets shared on Twitter	347,200	499.97 million
Hours spent in Zoom meetings	104,600	150.62 million
USD spent on DoorDash	76,400	110.02 million

YouTube

YouTube is a popular video-sharing and social media platform where users can watch an extensive amount of video content in various resolutions. In general, watching a YouTube video in 480p resolution utilizes around 500 MB of data every hour. The higher the resolution the more the data is utilized. Therefore, if you are watching a video on YouTube in 4k it will utilize 30x more data. 

Here is a complete breakdown of the amount of data used per hour based on different resolutions on YouTube: 

YouTube Video Quality	Data Used per Hour	Data Used per Day
480p	562.5MB	13.5GB
720p	1.86GB	44.64GB
1080p	3.04GB	72.96GB
4k	15.98GB	383.52GB

Netflix

Next, we have Netflix which is a subscription video-on-demand platform that allows users to stream a variety of video content such as Films and TV series in numerous genres. Netflix offers a variety of resolution options such as Standard quality, High-definition, and Ultra HD quality for users to stream their desired video content. Netflix uses 1GB of data every hour for streaming video content in standard definition. So, to stream 24 hours of content on Netflix in standard definition users will spend 24GB of data a day. 

Meanwhile, High-definition content on Netflix requires 3GB of data to stream an hour-long content making it 72GB data for a day. 

To stream content on Ultra HD resolution it requires users to have 7GB of data every hour making it 168GB of data per day. 

Video Quality	Data required for 1 hour	Data required for 24 hour
Standard Definition	1 GB	24 GB
High Definition	3 GB	72 GB
Ultra HD	7 GB	168 GB

Spotify

Spotify, a music streaming platform utilizes around 2MB+ data for a three-minute song on the platform. So, if you spend an hour listening to songs on Spotify you spend 40 MB every hour or 960 MB every day.

Sources: Sandvine, Domo, TechJury, iNews

Data Creation By Region

The United States is the leading country with the highest number of data centers (5,388) which is 10x more than any other country. Germany is ranked second in the list that contains (522) data centers followed by the United Kingdom in the third position with (517) data centers. 

Below we have listed down the top 16 countries with the highest number of data centers globally: 

Rank	Country	Region	Number of Data Centers
1	US	North America	5,388
2	Germany	Europe	522
3	UK	Europe	517
4	China	Asia	449
5	Canada	North America	336
6	France	Europe	315
7	Australia	Oceania	306
8	Netherlands	Europe	300
9	Russia	Europe/Asia	251
10	Japan	Asia	219
11	Italy	Europe	168
12	Mexico	North America	153
13	India	Asia	152
14	Brazil	South America	150
15	Poland	Europe	144

Source: Cloudscene

Conclusion

Data is a part of our day-to-day life and we create an abundance of data by simply sending out text messages, viewing a video on YouTube or performing a Google search. In today’s digital world data generation is increasing at a fast pace with the numbers reaching new heights. Above we have mentioned all the essential statistics related to data generation that can help you understand the true impact of data creation/