Citizens, enterprises and ICT

The integrated information framework on the use of ICT technologies by citizens and enterprises shows an increasingly widespread and advanced use of these technologies in economic activities and in everyday life. However, a significant gap is persisting compared to other EU countries, especially for the use of eCommerce as a channel for the purchase and sale of goods and services.

In 2017 the estimated share of households accessing the Internet through broadband, with a preference for a fixed connection (ADSL, optical fibre, etc.) rises to 69.5 % from 67.4% in 2016.

The share of companies with at least 10 persons employed connecting through mobile broadband continues to rise: from 63.8% in 2016 to 70.9% in 2017.

The share of companies accessing the Internet through fixed broadband and reporting Internet connection download speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s is increasing from 16.5% in 2016 to 23.7% in 2017 65.3% of the persons aged 6
and over were connected to the Web during the last 12 months (63.2% in 2016), while around 47.6% surf it every day. Age continues to be the main discriminating factor in the use of the internet: young people use it at the most (more than 92% of 15-24 year-olds) but the growth is significant among the 55-59-year-olds (62.7% to 68.2%) as well.

Smartphones and cloud services allow the connection to the Web and access to files always and everywhere: 44.6% of Internet users use smartphones while away from home or from the workplace; 32% use cloud services for saving documents or other files for private use.

The share of companies with at least 10 employees using social media is still growing: from 39.2% in 2016 to 44.0% of the current year.

The spread of digital skills within enterprises remains limited: only 16.2% of those with at least 10 persons employed have specialist ICT staff and only 12.9% organize IT training activities.

Among the persons who used the internet in the last 3
months, 18.8 used a dedicated websites or apps (such as AIRBNB) to arrange an accommodation and almost one third published their own web content.

Slowly share of enterprises selling online continues to increase (12.5%, 11% in 2016 and 10% in 2015). The use of intermediaries for eCommerce is very significant: 30% of the enterprises that sold via the web in the previous year made at least three quarters of the web turnover through websites or app of intermediaries.