Archive:Information society statistics

Graph 1: Internet access of households (% of all households), 2006-2007

Graph 2: Internet access of households by type of connection, 2007(% of all households)

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are considered as critical for improving the competitiveness of European industry and, more generally, to meet the demands of its society and economy. ICT affects many aspects of everyday lives, at both work and in the home, and EU policies in this area range from the regulation of entire industrial sectors to the protection of an individual’s privacy.

The policy framework for ICT is the i2010 initiative ’A European Information Society for Growth and Employment’, which seeks to boost efficiency throughout the European economy by means of wider use of ICT. The initiative is designed to promote an open and competitive digital economy, research into information and communication technologies, as well as their application to improve social inclusion, public services and quality of life. Indeed, at the heart of the policy is a desire to ensure that social and geographical differences are overcome, thus creating a fully-inclusive digital society. The i2010 initiative has three main priorities:

creating a Single European Information Space, which promotes an open and competitive internal market for information society and media services;

stimulating the information society – to strengthen investment in innovation and research in ICT, and;

exploiting the benefits of ICT – to foster inclusion, better public services and quality of life through the use of ICT.

Main statistical findings

Graph 3: Individuals regularly using the Internet by type of connection, 2007 (% of all individuals aged 16 to 74)

Table 1: Place of Internet use by individuals, 2007(% of individuals aged 16 to 74 who used the Internet in the last three months)

Graph 4: Individuals’ level of computer skills, 2007 (% of all individuals aged 16 to 74)

Graph 5: Individuals who ordered goods or services over the Internet for private use in the last twelve months, 2006-2007 (% of all individuals aged 16 to 74)

Graph 6: E-government on-line availability, 2007(% of online availability of 20 basic public services)

Table 2: Individuals using the Internet for interacting with public authorities, 2007 (% of all individuals aged 16 to 74)

Table 3: Proportion of enterprises that have remote employed persons who connect to IT systems from home, 2006 (1)(% of enterprises)

Table 4: Enterprises using the Internet for interacting with public authorities, 2007 (1) (% of enterprises)

Graph 7: Internet access and broadband connections among enterprises, 2007 (1) (% of persons employed)

Graph 8: Proportion of enterprises' total turnover from e-commerce via Internet, 2007 (1) (%)

Graph 9: Enterprises having received orders/made purchases on-line, 2007 (1) (% of enterprises)

Graph 10: Information technology expenditure, 2006 (1) (% of GDP)

During the last decade, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become widely available to the general public, in terms of accessibility as well as cost. The increasing use of these technologies is such that in 2007 for the first time, a majority (54 %) of households in the EU-27 had an Internet access. Among the Member States, a high proportion (83 %) of households in the Netherlands had an Internet access in 2007, while Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg reported shares of at least 75 %.

Widespread and affordable broadband access would appear to be one means of promoting the knowledge-based and informed society. The vast majority of households in the EU-27 accessed the Internet using a broadband connection, some 42 % compared with 14 % of households that had a dial-up or ISDN Internet access. Romania and Greece were the only Member States where a higher proportion of households used a dial-up or ISDN connection to access the Internet. Some 81% of individuals living in a household in the EU-27 with broadband connection accessed the Internet regularly (at least once a week), compared with 63 % of individuals living in households with Internet access but no broadband. Just over four fifths (81 %) of all Internet users aged 16 to 74 in the EU-27 declared they accessed Internet at home in 2007; while 43 % of Internet users accessed the Internet from their place of work.

Results on the supply of e-skills from 2007 show that more than three quarters of the population in Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany had basic computer skills. The lowest proportions were registered in Bulgaria (32 %) and Romania (29 %). The Member States which had the highest proportions of individuals with a high level of computer skills were Denmark and Luxembourg.

The proportion of the population with Internet skills varied from nearly 80 % or more in Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden to 37 % in Greece, 33 % in Bulgaria and 28 % in Romania. In Finland and Estonia, the proportion of the population with a high level of Internet skills was well above the EU-27 average of 8 %.

Almost one third (30 %) of individuals made use of e-government initiatives to access a range of public services online in 2007, mainly for obtaining information, but increasingly for downloading and filling in forms (such as tax returns). The Nordic Member States, the Netherlands and Luxembourg stood out, as a majority of individuals in each of these countries made use of such e-government services.

Almost all (97 %) of the workforce among enterprises with ten or more full-time persons employed in the EU-27 had an Internet connection in 2007 and more than 90 % of these accessed the Internet using a broadband connection. An average of 17 % of enterprises with ten or more full-time persons employed had the facility to allow remote persons to connect to their IT systems from home; this figure grew considerably as a function of the average size of an enterprise, rising to a 55 % share among those enterprises employing 250 or more persons. Enterprises in the Nordic Member States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom reported the highest propensity to make use of remote access to their IT systems, irrespective of the size of enterprise.

Concerning the demand for e-skilled labour, 16 % of enterprises in the EU-27 tried to recruit personnel with ICT user skills during 2006. One fifth of these enterprises had hard-to-fill vacancies because of the lack of ICT user skills. Moreover, 7 % of all enterprises recruited or tried to recruit personnel for jobs requiring ICT specialist skills. Almost half of these enterprises who tried to recruit had hard-to-fill vacancies for these jobs at the time of the survey in early 2007. Around two thirds (65 %) of enterprises made use of e-government services: a majority using e-government services to obtain information and to download forms (57 % and 58 % respectively), while 45 % of enterprises returned filled in forms using e-government services. The take-up of e-government services among enterprises in 2007 reflected the relatively high levels of take-up among households in countries like Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Finland. Several other countries – including Ireland, Greece, Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia – also recorded relatively high take-up of e-government services by enterprises, in contrast to household take-up. Bulgaria, Latvia and Romania were the only countries to report a minority of enterprises making use of e-government services.

Some 15 % of enterprises in the EU-27 received orders online during 2007, which was roughly half the proportion of enterprises (29 %) that used the Internet to place orders to purchase goods or services. The general pattern across Member States is one where a considerably higher proportion of enterprises have made purchases online when compared with those that have received orders online (probably reflecting the greater complexity of setting up an online selling system compared with making purchases). One third of all enterprises in Denmark received orders online in 2007, while corresponding shares were equal to or above one quarter in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands. In contrast, a majority of enterprises in Ireland and Germany (55 % and 52 % respectively) made purchases online in 2007, while upwards of 40 % of all enterprises in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Belgium and Austria made purchases online.

The proportion of total turnover accounted for by e-commerce via the Internet equated to 4.2 % in the EU-27 in 2007, with only a handful of countries – Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain and Lithuania – reporting that e-commerce represented more than 5 % of total turnover.

Compared with its main competitors, the EU has a relatively low share of ICT expenditure when expressed as a share of GDP. Indeed, expenditure on information technology represented 2.7% of GDP in the EU-27 in 2006, compared with 3.4 % in Japan and 3.3 % in the United States.

Data sources and availability

Statisticians are well aware of the challenges posed by rapid technological change in areas related to the Internet and other new means of ICT. As such, there has been a considerable degree of evolution in this area, with statistical tools being adapted to satisfy new demands for data. Statistics within this domain are re-assessed on an annual basis in order to meet user needs and reflect the rapid pace of technological change.

The data presented within this section are from Eurostat’s Survey on information and communication technologies in households and by individuals, and Survey on information and communication technologies in enterprises. These annual surveys on ICT use in enterprises and in households/by individuals can be used to benchmark ICT-driven developments. While the surveys initially concentrated on access and connectivity issues, their scope has subsequently been extended to cover a variety of subjects (including, for example, e-government, e-skills) and socio-economic breakdowns, such as regional diversity, gender specificity, age, educational differences and the individual’s employment situation in the household survey or a breakdown by size (small, medium, large) in the enterprise survey. The scope of the surveys with respect to different technologies is also adapted so as to cover new product groups and means of delivering communication technologies to end-users (enterprises and households).

Households are defined as having at least one member in the age group 16 to 74 years old. Internet access of households refers to the percentage of households with an Internet access, so anyone in the household could use the Internet at home, if desired, even if just to send an e-mail. Internet users are defined as all individuals aged 16-74 who had used the Internet in the previous three months. Regular Internet users are individuals who used the Internet, on average, at least once a week in the three months prior to the survey (in general, during the first quarter of 2007).

The most commonly used technologies to access the Internet are divided between broadband and dial-up access. Broadband includes Digital subscriber lines (DSL) and uses technology that transports data at high speeds. Broadband lines are defined as having a capacity equal to or higher than 144 kbit/s. A dial-up access using a modem can be made over a normal or an ISDN telephone line. Due to its limited bandwidth it is often referred to as narrowband.

A computer is defined as a personal computer that is run using one of the main operating systems (Macintosh, Linux or Microsoft); handheld computers or palmtops (PDAs) are also included. Individuals were asked if they have experiences in carrying out selected activities in order to measure their level of basic computer skills. Six computer-related items were applied: copied or moved a file or folder; used copy and paste tools to duplicate or move information within a document; used basic arithmetic formulas to add, subtract, multiply or divide figures in a spreadsheet; compressed files; connected and installed new devices, e.g. a printer or a modem; wrote a computer program using a specialised programming language. The level of an individual’s skills was determined as: low level: 1 or 2 activities carried out; medium level: 3 or 4 activities carried out; high level: 5 or 6 activities carried out.

The ordering of goods and services by individuals includes confirmed reservations for accommodation, purchasing financial investments, participation in lotteries and betting, Internet auctions, as well as information services from the Internet that are directly paid for. Goods and services that are obtained via the Internet for free are excluded. Orders made by manually written e-mails are also excluded. The indicator shows the percentage of individuals aged 16 to 74 who have used the Internet, in the 12 months prior to the survey, for ordering goods or services.

The survey on ICT usage in enterprises covers enterprises with 10 or more persons employed. Its activity coverage is restricted to those enterprises whose principal activity is within NACE Sections D, F, G, I and K and Groups 55.1, 55.2, 92.1 and 92.2, in other words manufacturing, construction, distributive trades, hotels and accommodation, transport and communication, real estate, renting and business activities, motion picture, video, radio and television activities. Internet access among enterprises is measured in terms of the proportion of the total number of persons employed having access to the Internet or access via a broadband connection; this indicator is considered as a proxy for productivity within enterprises. The availability of broadband is measured by the percentage of enterprises that are connectable to an exchange that has been converted to support xDSL-technology, to a cable network upgraded for Internet traffic, or to other broadband technologies.

The indicator measuring enterprise turnover from e-commerce is shown as a percentage of total turnover. Information comes from the surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institutes on usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) by enterprises. The indicator is calculated as the enterprises' receipts from sales through the Internet as percentage of the total turnover. Sales through other networks are not included, leaving out for instance EDI-based sales. Only enterprises with 10 or more employees are covered. The year given relates to the survey year. The e-commerce data relates to the year prior to the survey. E-commerce is defined as ordering or selling goods and services over computer mediated networks. Online purchases or orders received exclude those relating to manually typed e-mail purchases or orders received. The indicator on enterprises having received orders or made purchases online covers online selling via Internet and EDI or other networks within the previous year. Only enterprises buying/selling more than 1 % online are included.

Indicators relating to online access to public services show the percentage of 20 selected basic services which are fully available online, in other words, for which it is possible to carry out full electronic case handling. For example, if in a country 13 of the 20 services were measured as being 100 % available online and one service was not relevant (e.g. does not exist), the indicator is 13/19 which is 68.4 %. Measurement is based on a sample of URLs of public websites agreed with Member States as relevant for each service.

The indicators concerning the use of e-government services are based on usage during the three months prior to the survey for individuals and one year in the case of enterprises. For enterprises, the year given relates to the survey year, while the e-government data relates to the year prior to the survey. E-government services concern interaction with public authorities in one or more of the following activities: obtaining information from public authority websites, downloading official forms and submitting completed forms.

Data on information technology (IT) expenditure covers expenditure for IT hardware, equipment, software and other services.

Context

Digital literacy and e-skills are crucial to increasing participation in the information society. The 2007 results of Eurostat’s household survey of information and communication technologies presented in this subchapter include findings on the levels of computer and Internet skills of the population. According to a Communication from the European Commission on 'e-shills for the 21st century: fostering competitiveness, growth and jobs’, there is evidence of skills shortages across Europe, with a lack of up to half a million people with advanced networking technology skills, while enterprises report a skills shortfall for ICT practitioners, particularly in ICT strategy, security and new business solutions.

The i2010 benchmarking framework has addressed specific module(s) on e-skills in the 2007 survey(s).

After undergoing a mid-term review, an updated i2010 strategy was presented in April 2008, addressing key challenges for the period 2008-2010.

This was followed by a European Commission communication on future networks and the Internet which outlined the full breadth of the social and economic potential of the Internet in the future, based on the premise of a high-speed Internet available to all, internationally open and competitive, secure and safe to use, with transparent and effective governance. These fundamental conditions of accessibility, openness, transparency and security form the basis of the European Commission’s short-term agenda for the Internet of the future, as summarised by six actions:

the construction of high-speed internet infrastructures that are open to competition and give consumers real choices.

promoting access for all to a good-quality Internet connection at an affordable price.

keeping the Internet open to competition, innovation and consumer choice

launching a debate on the design and development of the Internet of the future.

providing clear guidelines on the implementation of existing rules on data protection and a coherent strategy for a secure Internet of the future.

taking into account the crucial role played by international policy, regulatory dialogue and research cooperation in all these developments.

Broadband technologies are considered to be of major importance when measuring access and use of the Internet as they offer users the possibility to rapidly transfer large volumes of data and keep their access line open; the take-up of broadband is considered a key indicator within the domain of ICT policy making. Widespread access to the Internet via broadband is seen as essential for the development of advanced services on the Internet, such as e-business, e-government or e-learning. Broadband growth has continued in recent years and 42 % of all households in the EU-27 have broadband. Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) remain the main form of delivery for broadband technology, although alternatives such as cable, satellite, fibre optics and wireless local loops are seeing more widespread use.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Science, technology and innovation in Europe

Science, technology and innovation in Europe – 2007 edition pocketbook

Main tables

Information society, see:

Information society statistics

Policy indicators

Information society: Structural Indicators

Telecommunication services

Computers and the Internet in households and enterprises

E-skills of individuals

Database

Information society, see: