The number of cases is triple that of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to the World Health Organisation.
Many hard-hit countries are easing lockdowns put in place to slow the spread of the novel virus, while others, such as China and Australia, implement another round of shutdowns in response to a resurgence in infections.
The first case was reported in China in early January and it took 149 days to hit 6 million cases.
It has taken less than a third of that time - just 39 days - to double to 12 million cases, a Reuters tally shows.
There have been more than 546,000 deaths linked to the virus so far, within the same range as the number of yearly influenza deaths reported worldwide.
The first death was reported on January 10 in Wuhan, China before infections and fatalities surged in Europe and then later in the United States.
The United States reported a daily global record of 56,818 new Covid-19 infections on July 3 when global cases reached the 11 million mark.
The United States recorded a total of three million cases on Tuesday, and accounts for more than a quarter of both global cases and global fatalities, putting President Donald Trump's pandemic strategy under scrutiny.
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