18 Important ProtonVPN Statistics to Know in 2024

The launch of ProtonVPN in 2017 stemmed from the necessity to safeguard the data and privacy of users of the company’s flagship product, ProtonMail.

Stationed in Geneva, Switzerland, this VPN is one of the best VPNs on the market. According to some users, the free version of ProtonVPN especially is highly reliable, unlike other freemium providers.

In this article, we are going to dive deep into ProtonVPN statistics over the years.

From ProtonVPN global user stats to traffic analysis, you are about to get a bird’s eye view of this VPN. Keep reading!

Stunning ProtonVPN statistics

Here are a few surprising facts about ProtonVPN you may not know about:

• ProtonVPN has over 10 million downloads in the Google Play Store 📥
• It is ranked 12,168 globally and 453 in the computer and technology category 🏆
• The VPN registers an annual revenue of up to 1 million dollars 💸
• 64.56% of ProtonVPN users access the website from a Desktop. 🖥️
• The website records over 4 million visits monthly. 👆

ProtonVPN background and growth statistics

How much do you know about ProtonVPN? Let’s explore statistics regarding its creation and rise to stardom.

1. Started in 2014, Proton now has a huge user base of over 100 million people

Source: [ProtonVPN About Us]

The founding fathers of the Proton company met at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research).

This is where they shared a united purpose of helping internet users, particularly activists and journalists, maintain privacy and data security. Then, In 2014, they brought their vision to life by building Proton Mail.

Thanks to its success, in 2017, these scientists, engineers, and developers found it fitting to supplement their previous product with the introduction of ProtonVPN.

Currently, Proton claims to protect over 100 million people with its products, solidifying its position as a leader in safeguarding online privacy. This also means its users have built a solid trust in the product.

2. ProtonVPN has over 10 million downloads on Google Playstore 

Sources: [Apple Store, Google Play store]

It has a 4.6-star rating on the Google Play Store and over 90,000 reviews, although not entirely positive, which goes to show how reliable ProtonVPN is to its users

It also has a 4.6-star rating on the Apple Store, more than twenty thousand reviews, and sits comfortably at No. 65 on Apple’s utility chart.

Even though ProtonVPN has not been in the market for a significant period, the statistics indicate that it is progressively establishing trust among VPN users worldwide. 

Especially for those that rely on its free version for their daily online task.

3. ProtonVPN.com had an influx of 4.5 million visits monthly in the first half of 2023 

Source: [SimilarWeb]

This makes it the fourth most searched-for VPN after Surfshark which sees 5.6 million users. Conversely, NordVPN tops the list with a whopping 14 million monthly visits.

Aside from the regular check-ins to the website daily, users see up to 4.79 pages per visit with an average view duration of at least 3 minutes.

Although these numbers do not reflect actual active users of ProtonVPN, it shows that the provider is at a healthy status in the VPN industry.

4. The search for ProtonVPN peaked in April and May 2023

Source: [Google Trends]

From the Google Trends results, it is clear that for the past three months, most people were more curious about ProtonVPN on April 1st and May 14.

Furthermore, in those 90 days, Ethiopians showed more interest in ProtonVPN than any other region.

5. ProtonVPN grew its employee count by 32% in 2022

Source: [Growjo]

The company had about 33 employees as of 2022 but currently has 51 active staff and the annual estimated revenue per employee sits at $119,515.

Additionally, ProtonVPN’s revenue is estimated to be $10 million annually.

6. ProtonVPN expanded servers to 61 countries in 2021

Source: [ProtonVPN blog]

In 2021, the ProtonVPN team announced the addition of the Philippines, Georgia, Egypt, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Nigeria to its list of servers.

Now, this VPN provider boasts 2980 servers in 67 countries with 3,487 Gbps capacity. Out of all these servers, 98 are secure core, 2627 are plus and 57 are free.

Its free servers are only available in three countries – Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States.

ProtonVPN user growth and demographics statistics

Without consumers, a product is nothing. Over the years, ProtonVPN has pulled in its fair share of users which are spread across the globe. 

Let’s quickly get to know how some regions respond to this VPN and its traffic sources.

7. 14.64% of Americans searched for ProtonVPN between March-May 2023

Source: [Similar web]

In the past three months, Russia accounted for 7.08% of the requests to the website. Additionally, India represented 6.52%, the United Kingdom accounted for 3.56%, and Germany contributed 3.24%.

When it comes to the distribution of traffic, 64.56% of visitors accessed the website through desktop devices, whereas 35.44% accessed it through mobile devices.

8. Cuba shows the most interest in ProtonVPN over the years

Source: [Google Trends]

According to Google Trends, results from the years 2004 to 2023, Cuba is most interested in ProtonVPN. The country Myanmar (Burma) comes second with an average of 88%.

Meanwhile, Iran stays as third with 66%. The Iranians’ fascination with VPNs may likely be due to the stern internet restrictions in their country.

St. Helena follows with 51% and Tanzania shows 44% interest in ProtonVPN. The country with the least concern for this product is Japan (1%).

9. 31.52% of the ProtonVPN audience is aged 18-24 years

Source: [SimilarWeb]

Also, those aged 25-34 years come close with 32.71%. The age groups that contribute to the highest numbers of visitors to this website are between 23-56 years old.

65+ year-olds account for 3.66% of people that go to ProtonVPN’s website, which is the lowest for all ages.

Furthermore, males account for the most visitors with 76.44% with females pecked at 23.56% 

10. Cyprus received the most votes in the 2020 ProtonVPN annual poll

Source: [ProtonVPN blog]

Before the 2021 server expansion, ProtonVPN had conducted a poll in 2020 and Cyprus came top with 1152 votes.

Then, the Philippines had 1,135, Thailand – 1,067 votes and Algeria registered the least votes.

Afterward, ProtonVPN went ahead to install four(4) servers in Cyprus, therefore making it the 55th country to join the ProtonVPN network.

11. 72.16% of ProtonVPN traffic comes from YouTube 

Source: [SimilarWeb]

For social media distribution, YouTube has contributed the most to Proton’s website, followed by Reddit (19.37%), Twitter (4.62%), Facebook (1.04%), and WhatsApp (0.70%).

Additionally, the ProtonVPN website also gets top referral sites that send desktop traffic to it.

Out of these sites, the computer technology category gives about 29.71%, search engines (15.89%), developer software (8.79%), and video game consoles (8.44%).

Community and society websites push 6.34% of traffic to the Proton website and 30.83% comes from other different categories.

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ProtonVPN performance and connection speed statistics

This VPN’s perfect command of the VPN industry may be the reason millions of people patronize it. In this section, we will examine ProtonVPN’s performance.

12. ProtonVPN experienced a 17% speed loss in a 2022 autumn test

Source: [Cnet]

According to an autumn speed test conducted by Cnet, Proton lost 17% of its speed in 2022 as opposed to the 2020 summer tests which it lost just 9%.

Since one can typically lose 50% of regular internet speed when connected to a VPN, Cnet was satisfied with Proton’s speed result.

Therefore, Cnet awarded it the third-fastest VPN just slightly behind NordVPN (13% speed loss) and above Surfshark (19% speed loss). 

13. ProtonVPN added the Smart protocol for the Windows app in 2019

Source: [ProtonVPN blog]

Additionally, the purpose of this protocol is to connect you to the next best available server when your VPN fails to connect or is blocked. 

This feature was implemented to ensure that users can successfully use the VPN, particularly to unblock geo-restrictions, while staying secure online.

14. The free servers on ProtonVPN recorded only a 7.64% speed loss

Source: [Cnet]

It is almost 10% points faster than the premium servers. Although the sample size was small as it depended on only three countries, it was an impressive speed for free servers.

During the research, Cnet registered a speed of up to 360Mbps to the Netherlands, 349Mbps to Japan, and 345Mbps to New York using the free servers with loads between 55% to 96%.

Cnet concludes that such speed is rare to find in freemium VPNs and is enough to complete any task one has to do online.

15. ProtonVPN pulled the plug on India in 2022 due to new data collection law

Source: [TechRadar]

Standing on its promise to safeguard users’ data regardless of the circumstance, ProtonVPN closed all its servers in India in 2022.

This was a result of the new law in India which demanded that VPN providers log users’ real names, IP addresses, and other personal information for up to five years.

Also, these VPN companies were to submit these data to India’s authorities upon request. 

Not only ProtonVPN but reputable VPNs like ExpressVPN and NordVPN also shut down servers in that region. 

16. New York servers were the fastest in the US with an average of 332.72Mbps in 2022

Source: [Cnet]

Cnet ran a speed test for three days from Ohio to ProtonVPN servers in New York, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, and Singapore, while connected to OpenVPN protocol.

In conclusion, the average overall speed through VPN servers was 303.71Mbps. On the other hand, European servers were a bit slower with 320.12Mbps and UK averaged 307.78Mbps.

Furthermore, the speed to Australia and Singapore from around the world were the slowest but still maintained a good 302.62Mbps and 255.25Mbps respectively.

17. ProtonVPN’s most recent security audit was completed in September 2021

Source: [Cnet]

Securitum, a security consulting firm based in Krakow, Poland, carried out this audit in March 2021. It found that no rule was broken in ProtonVPN’s users’ data safety policy.

As a result of the audit, Securitum noted that ProtonVPN offers its users high privacy with no data logs and there were no issues that would negatively impact users’ information.

However, the firm reported that ProtonVPN reviews network traffic on its free VPN servers. It does this to block BitTorrent traffic as it may interfere with ProtonVPN’s performance.

18. ProtonVPN disclosed a vulnerability in Apple iOS in 2021

Source: [ProtonVPN blog]

Proton observed that iOS fail to encrypt all traffic and allows data to leak outside a secure VPN tunnel even when the VPN connection is active.

In an updated report from ProtonVPN on October 13, 2022, Apple had not fixed this issue as certain DNS queries from Apple services can still be sent outside the VPN connection.

It is worthy of note that this vulnerability is not peculiar to ProtonVPN but affects VPN apps on iOS in general.

Wrap up

ProtonVPN is reported by users to be one of the most reliable free VPNs and the statistics agree so.

Apart from that, this VPN has done its best to ensure they keep to the promise of maintaining data privacy.

Therefore, this article explores key areas of ProtonVPN like how over 10 million people have downloaded the app so far on Google Play Store. There’s so much to digest, take your time.

Sources

1. ProtonVPN blog
2. Cnet
3. Similar web
4. TechRadar 
5. Google Trends
6. ProtonVPN
7. ZoomInfo
8. Growjo
9. ProtonVPN About Us
10. Apple Store
11. Google Play Store 
12. ProtonVPN

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