Press release 13/02/2009
FAMILY – INFORMATION SOCIETY SURVEY – 4th quarter 2008
Over half of the households of the Basque Country had an Internet connection in 2008
Significant increase in the use of Basque and English to browse online
The number of Internet users over 15 years old in the Basque Country stood at 929,300 in the fourth quarter of 2008, which was 50.5% of the total Basque population in that age bracket, according to Eustat data. This percentage was up by 6.4% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007.
By province, the increase in number of users was highest in Álava. It was up 3.8% compared to the second quarter of 2008 and moved to first position in terms of the percentage of Internet users, with 51.5%. Bizkaia, with an increase of 3.6%, had 50.4% of the Internet users in the last three months, which puts it in second place. There was a slight downturn (0.6%) in Gipuzkoa, with 50% of the population aged over 15 using Internet.
By age group, there was a notable increase (11.2%) among users aged 55 to 64 with respect to the second quarter of 2008, and among users over 65, with an 18.8% increase with respect to the second quarter of the same year and 64.1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. The use of Internet also increased (3.6%) among people in the 25.34 age bracket. 88.2% of people aged between 15 and 24 had used the Internet in the last three months, which was 4.5% down on the second quarter of the same year.
Graph 1. Evolution of the Population aged 15 and over by access to ICT equipment in the home per quarter 1999-2008. %
Source: EUSTAT
Gender gap among Internet users increases
The so-called gender gap, which had fallen to 7.1 percentage points in the second quarter of 2008, rose to 8.8 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2008. Therefore, with respect to the population aged 15 and over, male Internet users represented 55% of the male population and female users 46.2% in the case of women. Out of all the people using Internet in the fourth quarter of 2008, 52.9% were men compared to 47.1% of women.
In terms of activity, 95.4% of the student population used Internet, while that figure dropped to 68.7% when it came to the working population and 17.7% of the unemployed and inactive population. The greatest increase with respect to the second quarter of 2008 was among the unemployed and non-working population, which was up 7.4%. In the case of students, the percentage of Internet users increased by 2.1% and, finally, it was up by 1.3% among the working population.
The number of people connecting from home increased by 5.1% and nearly 84.7% of the users connected from home. There was also an increase in the number of accesses from educational centres and from the workplace, which was up by 8.7% and 0.9% respectively. On the other hand, Internet access from other places (Internet cafés, hotels, leisure areas,..) fell significantly and was down by 52% with respect to the second quarter of 2007.
Significant increase in the use of Basque and English to browse online
The percentage of Internet users that browse online in Basque increased 21.8%, while the ones using English was up 18.1% and those using Spanish by 2.5%. The average duration of the online connections was 44 minutes in the fourth quarter of 2008, which was down by a minute and a half with respect to the second quarter of the year.
One of every four people bought products or services online
The number of people that made purchases online rose slightly. In the fourth quarter of 2008, 15,000 people more shopped online, which means that nearly 230,400 users purchased something online.
The number of Basque households with access to ICT equipment continues to increase
The number of Basque households with Information and Communication Technologies equipment continued to increase. In the fourth quarter of 2008, 58.7% of the households in the Basque Country had a computer, which was 3.1% up on the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6.8% more with respect to the same quarter in the previous year.
With respect to Internet access, there are slightly over 415,000 families, 50.1%, which have access to this service, which, therefore, means that there were 22,700 new families (5.8%) with Internet connections in the fourth quarter of 2008. In annual terms, there were 13.9% more households with access to Internet than in the same quarter for the previous year. The number of people aged over 14 with access to the Net was up by 75,900 people, compared to the fourth quarter of 2007.
Eighty-eight per cent of households had mobile phones. In terms of the population aged 14 and over, the percentage owning a mobile phone stood at 93%.
Significant increase in the presence of Terrestrial Digital Television
With respect to the number of people with Terrestrial Digital Television, the data shows that the figure was up by 184%, from 430,400 people with Terrestrial Digital Television in the second quarter of 2008 to 1,222,000 people 15 and over with this type of equipment in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Table 1. Information Society Survey (ESI-Families)
* DIF. P.P. = Difference in percentage points
Source: EUSTAT
For further information:
Basque Statistics Office
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Tlf:+34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.es
Contact: Pilar Martínez Rollón
Tlf:+34-945-01 75 36 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01
Online press releases: www.eustat.es
Banco de datos: www.eustat.eus/bancopx/spanish/indice.asp