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Internet and e-commerce users increased significantly. The percentage of users for educational purposes more than doubled
Information and knowledge society - household survey
Internet and e-commerce users increased significantly. The percentage of users for educational purposes more than doubled - 2020
20 November 2020

Summary

In 2020, 84.5% of households in Portugal have an internet connection at home and 81.7% use a broadband connection, which represents a significant increase of more 3.6 pp in relation to the previous year.

In the context of the pandemic, the percentage of internet users increased 3.0 pp in relation to the equivalent period in 2019, in contrast to the stability of results in the previous two years.

The population aged 16 to 74 who used the internet in the 3 months prior to the interview did it mostly to communicate and access information, but it were mainly the learning-related activities that registered the largest increase in 2020: both the proportions of users communicating with teachers and colleagues through educational portals (from 14.5% in 2019 to 30.8% in 2020) and of those attending online courses (from 7.7% to 18.0%) more than doubled.

Among the employed internet users, 31.1% worked in teleworking, especially in the Área Metropolitana de Lisboa, reaching a proportion of 43.2%. For 29.6% of the employed internet users, work at home was associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

By income classes, households falling in the highest income quintile (20% of the households with the highest income) are those with the highest levels of access to the internet (96.8%) and broadband (94.5%). At the other end, the ones with an equivalent income corresponding to the 1st quintile (20% with lower income) have proportions of 66.9% for internet access at home and 62.4% for broadband access.

The percentage of e-commerce users in 2020 showed the largest increase in the data series started in 2002, 7 pp more than in 2019. In 2020, 44.5% of people aged 16 to 74 years old placed orders over the internet in the 12 months prior to the interview and 35.2% in the previous 3 months.

The number of orders placed by e-commerce increased significantly: the group of users who placed 3 to 5 orders increased by 4.0 pp, those who placed 6 to 10 orders increased by 9.5 pp and those who placed more than 10 orders increased by 6.9 pp.

The amount spent per order also increased, by more 15.7 pp in the case of orders between 100 and 499 Euro and by more 8.0 pp for orders with a value equal or higher than 500 Euro.


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