Press Release 18/07/2016
91.6% of companies with 10 or more employees in the Basque Country interact with Public Administration via the Internet
The proportion of Basque companies of 10 or more employees who access the Internet and have a website exceeds the EU-28 average
91.6% of companies with 10 or more employees that are connected to the Internet carry out procedures with the Public Administration in this way according to Eustat data. Specifically, they use the Internet to obtain information, collect and fill in various forms, declare social security contributions, pay corporate taxes, VAT, and present proposals and tenders, among other things. The total percentage of companies, regardless of size, that interact with Public Administration via the Internet is 83.3%.
Generally speaking, Basque companies are continuing to increase their use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) equipment as well as the percentage of their employees using this technology in 2016. Currently, 87.6% of establishments have a computer, an increase of 1.5 percentage points on the previous year. Establishments with email access make up 85.1% of the total, an increase of 1.3 percentage points, and 86.2% have access to the Internet, a figure that has grown by 2.1 points. As for mobile phones, these are still the most widespread item of ICT equipment, being used in 92.3% of Basque businesses, having increased by 2.5 percentage points in the last year.
Furthermore, half of businesses, 51.4%, have a website, which is 0.9 percentage points more than last year. This figure rises to 59.7% 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 increased their usage of ICT equipment slightly, 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 - 99.2% with a computer, 98.7% with e-mail, 98.1% with Internet access, 96.1% with a mobile phone and 88.8% with a website - their growth rate is much more limited than in small establishments, though not in the case of websites.
Regarding the percentage of employees using these technologies, there has once again been a rise compared to the previous year. Thus, 69.8% of personnel in work use a computer, 64.0% have e-mail and 63.1% have access to the Internet.
Unlike in equipment, 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, 83.8% of companies use some form of computer security measure, particularly antivirus software, firewalls, secure servers and authentication mechanisms, or subscribe to security services. In the case of companies with 10 employees or more, almost all of them (98.7%) use some form of computer security measure.
Furthermore, 56.0% 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 75.7% for companies with 10 or more employees.
Connections via optical fibre connectors to increase, and hence this technology is set to replace ADSL
Basque companies with Internet access currently stand at 86.2% of the total, after those connected rose by 2.1 percentage points the previous year.
Although connections by mobile phone (79.6%) and by ADSL (74.7%) are the most popular ways of accessing the Internet, the rise in mobile phone connections stalled this year, whereas ADSL connections are continuing to decrease, having done so by 2.4 percentage points last year.
Optical fibre connections (by cable, FTTH etc.), on the other hand, are still increasing, having undergone growth this year of 8.2 percentage points. Hence 48.7% of companies who access the Internet currently use this method to do so, which means it is this technology that will gradually replace ADSL.
Mobile connections, whether by mobile phone (smartphones, PDA etc.), 79.6%, or by laptop computer (tablets, netbooks etc.), 52.2%, have stopped rising this year after several years of substantial upturns. It is now the case that 81.6% of companies access the Internet in this way after a decrease of 0.8 percentage points.
In companies with 10 or more employees, 98.1% have access to the Internet. Connection via mobile phone is the most popular way of accessing the Internet (81.4%) amongst these companies as well, closely followed by ADSL lines, which are used by 79.2% of these companies.
Once again, for companies of this size, connections via optical fibre (by cable, FTTH etc.) have increased the most, going up by 6.3 percentage points and currently accounting for 60.2% of total connections. In terms of mobile connections, Internet access via laptop computer is particularly prevalent at 65.1%, even though this figure fell by 5.9 percentage points last year.
51.4% of Basque companies, 88.8% 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, over the last year, those that have had a web presence accounts for 51.54% of the total, following an increase of 0.9 percentage points, whilst in companies with 10 or more employees, this figure stands at 88.8%, after growing by 2.3 points. If we take into account solely those companies that have an Internet connection, these percentages rise to 59.7% for the total and 90.5% 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 99.0% of cases; Basque was available in 36.0% of cases; English, 27.8% and other languages, 13.3%.
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 the year prior to the one currently being published must be used, i.e. from 2015, where Basque companies obtained Internet access percentages (97.3%) higher than the European Union 28 average (97%), as well as having a greater percentage of businesses with Internet presence, 85.8% in the Basque Country in 2015, compared with the EU-28 average of 75%.
For further information:
Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Instituto Vasco de Estadística
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.eus Tel: 945 01 75 62
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