Information society today… in a few graphs
Here is a few interesting indicators measuring the state of Europe's information society today:
1. Nearly 40 million new regular Internet users in 1 year
2. Rapid progress everywhere across the Union – even though disparities persist
3. Information society per country – large fluctuations around EU average
4. Investment in ICT research is – highly uneven, overall too low
5. Enterprises use more broadband, eBanking and eGovernment services
6. Enterprises do not use ICT enough, on average
7. Full online availability of eGovernment services is increasing fast
8. Software and IT services – most dynamic part of ICT market
For more analysis, sources and notes, see:
1. Nearly 40 million new regular Internet users in 1 year
More than 50% of the
EU population are now regular users of internet.
High-speed broadband connection is becoming the norm – nearly
80% of all Internet connections are broadband, as compared to
less than 50% in 2005.
Europeans are quickly improving their digital skills – over the
past two years 8% of the EU population improved their Internet
skills to medium and high.
There is some growth in online purchasing but use of advanced internet services increases much faster.
Source: Community Survey of ICT Usage in Households and by Individuals,2007. Eurostat
Source: Community Survey of ICT Usage in Households and by Individuals, 2007. Eurostat
2. Rapid progress everywhere across the Union – even though disparities persist
With 100 million broadband Internet connections, the European
broadband market is growing rapidly and is now larger that of
the United States.
By January 2008, 20% of Europeans had broadband connections - a
threefold increase since the Union's enlargement in 2004.
Denmark, Finland and The Netherlands are world leaders.
Progress is being registered in all the Member States but
disparities across the Union increase.
Source: Commission services, based on data from COCOM and Point Topic.
3. Information society per country – large fluctuations around EU average
The box chart that shows how the countries are performing
relative to the EU average on 52 information society indicators
taken together (see example below*).
All countries have strengths and weaknesses with indicators both
above and below the EU average. There are three groups of
countries:
-
The most advanced, for which the box lies entirely above the line, such as Denmark or The Netherlands. For this group, more than 75% of their indicators are above the EU average.
-
The least developed countries, for which the box lies entirely below the line, such as Bulgaria or Greece. For these countries, 75% of the indicators are below the EU average.
-
The remainder with values distributed above and below the EU average, such as Spain or Malta.
Source: Commission services.
* How to read the graph?
For example, the box for Austria extends from -1.1% to +7.6% which means that half the indicators are within this range. The negative outliers are between -1.1% and -11.1% i.e. no indicator for Austria is more than 11.1 percentage points below the EU average. The positive outliers are between +7.6% and +48.6% of the EU average. The average for all indicators in Austria is +3.4 percentage points above the EU27 mean and the median value is +2.4.
4. Investment in ICT research is – highly uneven, overall too low
The EU has put research and innovation on top of its agenda for
economic reform by setting a target of 3% for the overall
research expenditure in percentage of GDP by 2010. The EU is
likely to fall short of the target and research intensity in the
ICT sector is also indicating insufficient research efforts.
Countries such as Sweden and Finland stand out as exceptionally
research-intensive, with levels above the United States. Another
group, including Germany and France, can still be characterised
as very research-oriented. In the third group of countries
comparatively little is invested in ICT R&D as a percentage of
value added.
Source: IPTS-REDICT based on data from Eurostat, OECD, EU, KLEMS and national statistics.
5. Enterprises use more broadband, eBanking and eGovernment services
Connectivity and basic ICT uptake by European enterprises have
visibly progressed since 2005: by 2007, 77% of all businesses
had a broadband connection (97% of large enterprises and 77% of
SMEs) and 77% were using the internet for dealing with banks.
Enterprises also started making significant use of e-government
services.
However, there is a wide variation in the take-up of the more
advanced ICT applications that can boost productivity (such as
using ICT for transactions with business partners or selling
online).
Source: Community Survey of ICT usage by Enterprises, 2007, Eurostat
6. Enterprises do not use ICT enough, on average
Overall, the uptake of e-invoicing is still low in the EU: only 9% of enterprises (representing the 25% of the economy) send them to their business partners by post. The take-up of e-invoicing is a good example of the gaps and differences across Member States. While in Northern countries enterprises sending e-invoices represent more than 40% of their economies, in most of the new Member States the move from paper to electronic invoices has just started. The disparities in ICT use by businesses are smaller from Member State to Member State than disparities in ICT use by households.
Source: Data refer to all the enterprises, excluding the financial sector.
Source: Community Survey of ICT usage by Enterprises, 2007, Eurostat
7. Full online availability of eGovernment services is increasing fast
Europe continues to make rapid progress in the supply of online public services. In 2007, 58% of the services measured were fully available i.e. the full transaction could be carried out online. This is up from 50% in 2006, the largest percentage increase for a single year since 2001.
However, the gap between the leading Member State – Austria, now with 100% fully available - and the worst performer is 85 percentage points.
Source: Commission services ("The User Challenge: Benchmarking the supply of online public services", European Commission 2007)
8. Software and IT services – most dynamic part of ICT market
Software and IT services represent about one third of the entire
ICT market and are its most dynamic component while growth in
the telecom sector is slowing down. The main growth
drivers for this segment are storage, security and business
management software.
Software and IT services are expected to continue growing strongly for the next three years, with the European and US markets experiencing similar trends:
|
Software and IT Services: forecast growth* 2006-2011
|
||
|
|
Software |
IT services |
|
Europe** |
7.8% |
7.2% |
|
USA |
7.9% |
7.2% |
|
Japan |
4.8% |
3.6% |
Source: Gartner Dataquest Market Databook, September 2007 Update
*Growth = Annual growth rate.
**Europe in its geographical sense, not just limited to the EU.