THE INTERNET

There is an increase in the use of the internet in Cyprus.

There has been an increase 6.8% in the number of households that have access to the internet in 2018 compared to 2017, whereas there has been a slight decrease 1.1% in the purchase of products or services during the first trimester of 2018. According to a newsletter by the Statistical Service, during 2018 there has been a significant rise in the number of households that have access to the internet reaching 86.2% compared to 79.4% in 2017.

The percentage of households that have a personal computer has reached 78.7% compared to 75.9% in 2017. There has been an increase in the number of households that have a portable computer, too, which has increased from 65% in 2017 to 68.5% in 2018. As stated, the percentage of households without dependent children that have a personal computer has also increased from 68.5% in 2017 to 72% in 2018. The percentage of households with dependent children that have a personal computer has reached 93.3%.

Regarding the frequency of the use of the internet, 83.7% of people aged 16-74 use it at least once a week. An overwhelming percentage of 99.3% of the age group 16-24 use the internet once a week. The percentage is reduced significantly with the increase of age, with the age group 65-74 using it 37.5% in 2018 compared to 33.9% in 2017.

According to the data by the Statistical Service, people of a higher educational background use the internet more frequently (97.3%) compared to the people with a lower educational background (53.8%).

Meanwhile, during the first trimester of 2018, the use of the internet has reached 84.4% compared to the same trimester in 2017 which was 80.7%.

The most popular activities on the internet are searching for information for products and services (85.1%), participating in social media (81.7%), watching videos on video sharing websites (80.8%), calling via the internet/ video calling (74.4%) and searching for information related to health (64.1%).

As stated, 87.5% of the people who used the internet during the first trimester of 2018 used a mobile phone or a smartphone to have access to the internet away from home or workplace, whereas 16.7% used a portable computer and 11.5% a touch screen computer. Regarding online purchases, the percentage of age group 16-74 that made purchases online during the first trimester of 2018 reached 23.3% compared to 24.4% the same trimester last year. The products or services that were purchased the most were clothing items and sports items (56.3%), travel arrangements such as tickets and car rental (51.3%) and holiday accommodation (46.7%).

Among the people of the age group 16-74 who purchased products or services during April 2017-March 2018, 82.9% prefers sellers from EU countries, 35.8% prefers sellers from the rest of the world and 34.6% buys from sellers in Cyprus.

In addition, most purchases were made for products or services between 100 and 500 euro.