Press release 09/07/2015
In the Basque Country, 93.1% of companies with 10 or more employees interacts with the Public Administration via the Internet in 2015
The proportion of Basque companies of 10 or more employees who access the Internet and have a website exceeds the EU-28 average
Basque companies are continuing to improve their ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in 2015. At the same time, the percentage of employees using these technologies also keeps increasing year after year, according to data prepared by EUSTAT.
93.1% of companies with 10 or more employees who use the Internet process paperwork for the Public Administration via this channel, and also use it to obtain information, gather and fill in various sheets and forms, declare social contributions, pay corporation taxes, VAT, etc. and present proposals and tenders, among other things. The total percentage of companies, regardless of size, who interact with the Public Administration via the Internet is 67.7%.
Currently, 86.1% of establishments have a computer, an increase of 3.3 percentage points on the previous year. Establishments with email access make up 83.8% of the total, an increase of 4.1 percentage points, and 84.1% have access to the Internet, a figure that has grown by 2.9 points. As for mobile phones, these are still the most widespread item of ICT equipment, being used in 89.8% of Basque businesses, having increased by 2.3 percentage points in the last year.
Furthermore, half of businesses, 50.5%, have a website, which is 3.4 percentage points more than last year. This figure rises to 60.0% if only companies with an Internet connection are taken into account.
By Province, although the differences are not very significant, the establishments in Álava had the greatest implementation of these technologies, followed by those in Gizpuzkoa. Bizkaia, for its part, obtained slightly lower figures.
Companies of 10 or more employees have practically maintained the same ICT equipment, having already nearly reached the availability threshold
These equipment percentages were higher in establishments of 10 or more employees. However, because of their extensive use - 99.0% with a computer, 98.0% with e-mail, 97.8% with Internet access, 94.1% with a mobile phone and 86.5% with a website - their growth rate is much more limited than in small establishments.
Regarding the percentage of employees using these technologies, there has once again been a rise compared to the previous year. Thus, 69.5% of personnel in work use a computer, 63.4% have e-mail and 61.8% have access to the Internet.
Unlike with equipment in businesses, it is important here to point out how the percentages of employees using this technology are very similar, regardless of the size of the establishment, due, amongst other reasons, to the greater progress in small establishments and to the fact that, in large ones, not all employees have access to this equipment.
On the other hand, 85.0% of companies, and almost all (98.8%) of those with 10 or more employees, use some form of computer security measure, particularly antivirus software, firewalls, secure servers and authentication mechanisms, or subscribe to security services.
Furthermore, 60.5% of Basque companies have free software, such as Internet browsers, office programs, free or open-source operating systems (Linux and others) etc. This percentage goes up to 81.7% for companies with 10 or more employees.
It is mobile connections for Internet access that are experiencing the greatest growth in Basque companies in recent years
Basque companies with Internet access currently represent 84.1% of the total, after those connected the previous year rose by 2.9 percentage points.
Currently, connection via mobile phone is the most popular way of accessing the Internet, at 80.5%, having increased by 6.9 percentage points in the last year, knocking ADSL lines, at 77.1%, out of first place, with the latter having increased by 4.1 percentage points. Mobile connections, whether by mobile phone (Smartphone, PDA, etc.), 80.5%, or laptop computer (including tablets, netbooks, etc.), 55.8%, have seen large growth year after year, and currently 82.4% of businesses use a mobile Internet connection, having increased by 6.7 percentage points in the last year.
Fibre-optic cable has also achieved a large increase of 7.5 percentage points, with 40.5% of businesses currently accessing the Internet via this channel.
In companies with 10 or more employees, 97.8% have access to the Internet. For companies of this size, ADSL lines continue to be the most popular means of access, with 83.4% using them, although mobile phones are not very far behind now, at 81.3%, with the former having decreased by 2.5 percentage points and the latter having increased by 2.5.
Furthermore, in terms of mobile connections, Internet access with a laptop computer stands out, at 71%, with an increase of 6.5 percentage points. For fixed connections, fibre-optic cable stood at 53.9%, following an increase of 7.4 points.
50.5% of Basque companies, 86.5% in those with 10 or more employees, had an online presence via a website
Companies are increasingly conscious of the importance of maintaining a presence on the Internet via a website. Hence, in the last year, those that had a web presence accounted for 50.5% of the total, following an increase of 3.4 percentage points, whilst in companies of 10 or more employees this figure stood at 86.5%, after growing 0.2 points. If we take into account solely those companies that had an Internet connection, these percentages rise to 60% for the total and 88.4% in those with 10 or more employees.
These websites provide general information on the company, a list of products and services offered, a data privacy statement, job offers and after-sale services.
Regarding languages that they can be accessed in, Spanish particularly stands out, available in 99.2% of cases; Basque was in 35.7% of cases; English, 29.1% and other languages, 13.8%.
Internet access and online presence in Basque companies of 10 or more employees exceeded the EU-28 average
At an international level, and for a perfect comparability with the EU-28, as well as employing the data of companies with 10 or more employees and the activities that Eurostat gathers (the financial sector, public administration, etc. are not taken into account), information from 2014 must be used, where Basque companies obtained Internet access percentages (97.5%) higher than the European Union 28 average (97%), as well as having a greater percentage of businesses with internet presence, 86.3% in the Basque Country in 2014, compared with the EU-28 average of 74%.
For further information:
Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Instituto Vasco de Estadística
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel: 945 01 75 62
Further press releases on Survey on the information society. Companies
Survey on the information society. Companies. Databank