Internet access and the use of computers at home are rising at a healthy pace in Cyprus, according to the “ICT Usage in Households and by Individuals” survey of the statistical service Cystat.
The annual survey, conducted in the first quarter of 2014, covered 1,884 households and 4,141 individuals aged 16-74 years.
The survey found that 95.5% of households with dependent children have a computer, while in households where there are no dependent children, the percentage is only 63.2%.
Internet access in households continues to rise and reached 68.6% compared to 64.7% in 2013. At the same time, there was an increase in the individuals that used the Internet, from 65.5% in 2013 to 69.3% in 2014.
A broadband connection seems to have replaced dial-up or other connectivity as it is used in almost all households for access to the Internet (99.9%).
The percentage of households with access to a tablet computer also increased significantly nearly doubling to 32.8% in 2014 compared to 18.7% in 2013, while 7.1% of households with Internet access have a mobile connection (via handset, broadband card, USB).
Young users aged 16-24 years (96.4%) and students (98.7%) are the most frequent Internet users. This rate seems to decrease with age as only 15.2% of individuals 65-74 years old use the Internet. Men use the Internet more frequently than women with a percentage of 67.0% and 63.8%, respectively.
The most popular Internet activities are finding information about goods or services, and sending/receiving e-mails (89.0% and 73.8% of Internet users, respectively).
A new trend is that 18.4% of Internet users accessed storage space on the web (Dropbox, Windows Onedrive/Skydrive, Google Drive, etc.) or file sharing services (Picasa, Flickr, etc.).
As regards e-commerce, 23.1% of users made online orders for goods and services in the first three months of 2014. More than 60% ordered clothes and sports goods (60.6%) and 54.4% bought travel services (tickets, hotel, car hire, etc.).
The results of the survey are available at http://www.cystat.gov.cy under ‘Science and Technology / Information Society’.
