The 2009 report on digital competition that was commissioned by the European Committee showed that the European digital sector had made “strong progress” since 2005, with 56 percent of Europeans regularly using the Internet in 2008.
In Portugal, however, only 38 percent of the population regularly uses the Internet (at least once a week) which places the country 22nd out of 27 State Members. At the same time only 29 percent of Portuguese use the Internet every day, in comparison to the 43 percent European average.
The report shows that “Portugal is one of the countries with the lowest amount of regular and frequent Internet users and has a high percentage of the population that has never used the Internet (54 percent)”.
It concluded that despite these figures high-speed Internet is easily available to 95 percent of the population, which is above the European average of 92.7 percent and therefore places Portugal 12th out of 27 EU countries in terms of Internet accessibility.
Therefore the EC has concluded that Portugal holds a “relatively strong position” within the society of information and commercial applications (e-business and e-commerce) and is one of the EU’s countries that lead the way in terms of possibilities that the population is offered regarding dialogue with public administration (e-government).
Out of the various age groups European youngsters, aged between 16 and 24, are the most active Internet users; 73 percent regularly use the services to create and share information on-line.
The report depicts that those youths are “reluctant to pay for downloading or for on-line contents like videos or music”.
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Quelle/Source: The Portugal News, 08.08.2009
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