The number of Internet users aged over 14 in the A.C. of the Basque Country stands at around 843,600 in the second quarter of 2007, which is 45.9% of the Basque population in this age bracket as a whole, according to data prepared by Eustat. This percentage is up by 10% compared to the fourth quarter of 2006.

By province, the greatest increase was in Bizkaia, 11.7% up on the fourth quarter of 2006, which moved into first place in terms of the percentage of Internet users, with 46.4%. Gipuzkoa, with an increase of 7%, had 46% of the Internet users in the last three months. Álava increased by 11.2%, up to 43.7%, the percentage of the population aged over 14 that uses the Internet.

Users aged 65 and over is up by 51.1%

In terms of age, 88.4% of the young people aged 15 to 24 have gone online during the second quarter of 2007, 5.3% more than in the fourth quarter of 2006. Special mention should be made of users aged 65 and over, which increased by 51.1%, and those between 55 to 64 and over, with an increase of 17.9%, even though the absolute number of users is relatively low, with these age brackets accounting for just 8.6% of the total.

Graph 1. Evolution of the Population aged 15 and over by access to ICT equipment in the home per quarter 1999-2007. %

Source: EUSTAT

Gender gap among Internet users decreases

The so-called gender gap, which had increased to 7.2% in the fourth quarter of 2006, was down to 5.6% in the second quarter of 2007. Therefore, with respect to the population aged 15 and over, male Internet users represent 48.8% of the male population and 43.2% in the case of women. Out of all the people using Internet in the second quarter of 2007, 51.7% were men compared to 48.3% of women.

In terms of activity, 96% of the student population uses Internet, while that figure drops to 62% of the working population and 15% of the unemployed and inactive population. The largest increase with respect to the fourth quarter of 2006, with a 24.1%, was among the unemployed and inactive population. In the case of the working population, the percentage increased by 9.3% and the by 4.2% for the students.

On the other hand, the number of people connecting from home increased by 14.8% and nearly 80% of the users connect from home. The number of people accessing from work centres (+8.6%) and from educational centres (+5.7%) also increased. However, access to Internet from other locations - Internet cafes, hotels, leisure spaces,... - has fallen by 20.2%.

The average length of the last Internet connection increased by 7.3 minutes

An increase of the average length of the last Internet connection could be seen to have increased by 7.3 minutes, which rose from 45.7 minutes in the fourth quarter of 2006 to 53 minutes in the second quarter 2007.

28.2% of the Internet users over 14 years old bought products or services online in the last quarter.

The number of people that made purchases through the Net has risen dramatically. In the second quarter of 2007, 50,200 people more shopped online, which means that nearly 238,000 users that have purchased something online. This figure is up 26.7% with respect to the fourth quarter of 2006.

The number of Basque households with access to ICT equipment continues to increase

The number of Basque households with Information and Communication Technologies equipment continues to increase. In the second quarter of 2007, 55.1% of the households in the A. C. of the Basque Country had a computer, which was 5.4% up on the fourth quarter of 2006 and 9.5% more with respect to the same quarter in the previous year.

With respect to Internet access, there are slightly over 346,000 families, 43.4%, which have access to this service, which, therefore, means that there are 26,600 new families (8.3%) with Internet connections in the second quarter of 2007. In annual terms, there were 12.5% 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 grew by 55,300 people, up three percentage points, which brings the total potential users in the household up to over 962,000 people.

The mobile phone is present in 86.9% of households, alongside the landline, which remains in 92.4% of them. If we refer to the population aged 14 and over, the percentage that owns a mobile phone comes to 92.4%, 1.1 percentage points more than in the fourth term of 2006.

Table 1. Information Society Survey (ESI-Families)

Source: EUSTAT