Digital 2025: The Cook Islands
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This page explores the adoption and use of connected devices and services in the Cook Islands in 2025.
If you want to know whether this is our most recent report on the Cook Islands, or if you’re looking for data on digital trends and behaviours in the Cook Islands for other years, you can find DataReportal’s full collection of (free!) reports on the Cook Islands by clicking here.
You’ll find a summary of key statistics in the “overview graphic” section towards the bottom of this page, but we’ll start this article by taking a look at the essential headline numbers for the Cook Islands this year.
Just before that, we’d like to say a big thank you to Meltwater and to We Are Social for their support of the Global Digital Reports series in 2025.
Now, let’s start exploring the data…
The “state of digital” in the Cook Islands in 2025
Here are DataReportal’s essential headlines for the adoption and use of connected devices and services in the Cook Islands in 2025:
A total of 16.1 thousand cellular mobile connections were active in the Cook Islands in early 2025, with this figure equivalent to 119 percent of the total population. However, note that some of these connections may only include services such as voice and SMS, and some may not include access to the internet.
There were 7,285 individuals using the internet in the Cook Islands at the start of 2025, when online penetration stood at 54.0 percent.
The Cook Islands was home to 9,500 social media user identities in January 2025, equating to 70.4 percent of the total population.
These headline stats offer a great overview of the “state of digital” in the Cook Islands at the start of 2025, but in order to make sense of how digital trends and behaviours have been evolving over time, we need to dig deeper into the data.
Let’s take a closer look at what the numbers tell us, starting with some valuable context relating to the population of the Cook Islands.
Population of the Cook Islands in 2025
The population of the Cook Islands stood at 13.5 thousand in January 2025.
Data shows that the Cook Islands’ population decreased by 476 (-3.4 percent) between early 2024 and the start of 2025.
Meanwhile, in early 2025, 76.5 percent of the Cook Islands’ population lived in urban centres, whereas 23.5 percent lived in rural areas.
At that time, 51.1 percent of the Cook Islands’ population was female, while 48.9 percent of the population was male.
Note: gender data were only available for “female” and “male” at the time of report production.
The Cook Islands’ population by age
At the beginning of 2025, the median age of the Cook Islands’ population was 37.1, with half of the Cook Islands’ population above this age, and the other half of the population below it.
For added context, here’s how the Cook Islands’ total population broke down by age group at the start of the year:
6.0 percent was between the ages of 0 and 4.
13.5 percent was between the ages of 5 and 12.
9.9 percent was between the ages of 13 and 17.
9.1 percent was between the ages of 18 and 24.
8.2 percent was between the ages of 25 and 34.
11.5 percent was between the ages of 35 and 44.
13.0 percent was between the ages of 45 and 54.
14.2 percent was between the ages of 55 and 64.
14.6 percent was aged 65 and above.
Note: percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.
Mobile connections in the Cook Islands in 2025
Data from GSMA Intelligence shows that there were 16.1 thousand cellular mobile connections in the Cook Islands at the beginning of 2025.
For perspective, many people make use of more than one mobile connection, so it’s not unusual for mobile connection figures to significantly exceed figures for total population.
For example, the same person might have one mobile connection for personal use, but also use a separate mobile connection for work activities. The rise of eSIMs has made this even easier over recent years.
Indeed, GSMA Intelligence’s numbers indicate that mobile connections in the Cook Islands were equivalent to 119 percent of the total population in January 2025.
Looking at trends over time, the number of mobile connections in the Cook Islands increased by 1,345 (+9.1 percent) between the start of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.
Meanwhile, GSMA Intelligence’s data suggests that 98.9% of mobile connections in the Cook Islands can now be considered “broadband”, which means that they connect via 3G, 4G, or 5G mobile networks.
However, devices that connect to “broadband” mobile networks do not necessarily use cellular mobile data — for example, some subscription plans may only include access to voice and SMS services — so this broadband figure should not be considered a proxy for mobile internet use.
Internet use in the Cook Islands in 2025
At the time of report production, the latest available data indicated that there were 7,285 internet users in the Cook Islands in January 2025.
This means that the Cook Islands’ internet penetration rate stood at 54.0 percent of the total population at the start of the year.
Meanwhile, Kepios’s analysis indicates that the number of internet users in the Cook Islands decreased by 257 (-3.4 percent) between January 2024 and January 2025.
And for added perspective, the Cook Islands’ internet adoption rate (i.e. the percentage of the total population that uses the internet) remained unchanged during the same period.
But these user figures also suggest that 6,206 people in the Cook Islands did not use the internet at the beginning of 2025, suggesting that 46.0 percent of the population remained “offline” at the start of the year.
However, complexities associated with the collection and analysis of internet user data mean that it can often take several months before research is ready for publication.
As a result, the latest published figures for internet use may under-represent current realities, and actual rates for internet adoption and year-on-year growth may be higher than the figures shown here suggest.
Please see our comprehensive notes on data for further details.
Social media statistics for the Cook Islands in 2025
DataReportal’s figures show that there were 9,500 active social media user identities in the Cook Islands in January 2025.
For perspective, this figure was equivalent to 70.4 percent of the Cook Islands’ total population at the start of 2025.
However, while our methodology strives to “de-duplicate” social media users across different social platforms — and, wherever possible, to remove accounts that do not represent individual human users — it’s important to stress that our social media user identities figures may not represent unique individuals (see our detailed notes on data to learn why).
Moreover, due to complexities associated with de-duplicating users across different social platforms, the methodology that we use to calculate social media user identities may sometimes only factor users of the social media platform that has the largest active audience in the respective country at the time of report production.
As a result, the figures that we publish for a country’s overall social media use may sometimes look very similar to the statistics that we publish for the most popular social media platform in that country.
Separately, please also note that the signals and sources that we rely on to inform these social media figures make regular changes and corrections to their data.
As a result, the values for social media use shown here might appear to be quite different to the numbers that we published in previous years.
Because of this, we advise significant caution when comparing the values for social media user identities published in this year’s reports with those published in previous years, especially because changes in our reported values may be the result of “corrections” in the source data, and not all trends will be the result of changes in actual user behaviour.
Indeed, source data anomalies mean that we are currently unable to report reliable figures for change over time in social media user identities for the Cook Islands, and readers should avoid comparing current values for social media user identities with equivalent values shown in our previous reports, because such comparisons will result in incorrect values and unrepresentative trends.Turning our attention to user demographics, data published in the ad planning tools of top social media platforms indicates that there were 9,500 users aged 18 and above using social media in the Cook Islands at the beginning of 2025, which was equivalent to 99.7 percent of the total population aged 18 and above.
At that time, 53.5 percent of the Cook Islands’ social media user identities were female, while 46.5 percent were male.
And for added context, it may be helpful to know that 130.4 percent* of the Cook Islands’ total internet user base (regardless of age) used at least one social media platform in January 2025.
Note: due to source data limitations, we’re only able to report gender data for “female” and “male”.
*Advisory: we’re aware that usage rates in excess of 100 percent of the population, of the “eligible” population, and / or of internet users may seem implausible, but we’ve elected to republish source data “as is”, in order to enable readers to make their own judgements. Please see our detailed notes on data to learn more about potential causes of these anomalies.
Additional resources
Just before we get to the overview graphic, here are some suggestions for further reading, which will provide additional context for our full set of Digital 2025 numbers for the Cook Islands:
Read our complete Digital 2025 Global Overview Report to get a comprehensive overview of the “state of digital” around the world in 2025.
Click here to see all of the Global Digital Reports we’ve published for the Cook Islands over the years.
Explore all of our reports on countries in the Oceania region by clicking here.
Find all of the reports in the Digital 2025 series via this handy index page.
Visit our complete online library to see all of the (free!) reports in the Global Digital Reports series.
If you’d like to receive updates when we publish new reports, click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Overview graphic
You’ll find a handy overview of the current “state of digital” in the Cook Islands in the graphic below.
