Eurostat: More than 50% of internet users post messages in social media and over 60% read news online

Cristina Blanaru Digital & Media, Social Media, Studies

Internet access and use is widespread amongst the EU population, with more than ¾ of EU households having access to the internet this year, up from less than 50% in 2006, according to Eurostat’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) survey . Moreover, from the total number of households connected to internet this year, 72% had broadband connections (up from 30% in 2006)

The survey covers EU27, Iceland, Norway, Croatia, Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedoniaand Turkey.

Netherlands leads in internet connections, Romania and Greece – on the last places

In 2012, shares of internet access of 90% and over were recorded in the Netherlands (94%), Luxembourg (93%) and Denmark and Sweden (both 92%), while shares just over 50% were registered in Bulgaria (51%), Greece and Romania (both 54%).

Broadband internet access enables higher speed when browsing and performing activities over the internet. In 2012, in every EU state at least half of households had a broadband connection. Sweden (87%) registered the highest share of broadband connections, followed by Denmark and Finland (both 85%), the Netherlands (83%), Germany (82%) and the United Kingdom (80% in 2011).

On internet, Portuguese are active on social media, Finns use it for banking and travel

Sending and receiving e-mails and finding information about goods or services remained the most common online activities (89% and 83%) in European Union states. Internet was also used for reading online news (61%), internet banking (54%), posting messages in Social media (52%) and travel related activities (50%).

On the other hand, 2012 wasn’t a year of blooming for creating websites or blogs, with only 9% of internet users doing that.

Lithuanians (92%) and Estonians (91%) were the most avid readers of news and newspapers online, with French being the least interested by this activity (38%).

Finns were using internet banking (91%) and online travel services (69%) the most. Internet users from Portugal were the ones posting most messages in social media (75%), while Czechs (35%), French (40%) and Germans (42%) were the least active in this direction.

When it came of creating websites and blogs, Netherlands (17%) and Hungary (16%) recorded a proportion of internet users doing so that was almost double compared to EU27average (9%).