Share of households with Internet access at home 80.8pct in 2021

The share of households with access to the Internet at home was 80.8pct in 2021, up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year, according to data sent by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) on Wednesday to AGERPRES.

Thus, in 2021, about 8 out of 10 households in Romania (80.8pct) have access to the Internet at home. In urban areas, 86.9pct of households are connected to the Internet, and in rural areas only 73.1pct.

In terms of territory, the Internet connection was more widespread among households in the Bucharest-Ilfov region (over eight out of nine households have access to the Internet at home), followed by the West (84.3pct) and North-West (84pct) regions. The lowest shares are registered by the South-East (76.2pct), South-Muntenia (77.1pct) and South-West Oltenia (77.4pct) regions.

The types of connection used to access the Internet at home are 81.7pct mobile broadband connections, followed by fixed broadband connections (73.7pct).

Of the total number of people between 16 and 74 years old, the proportion of those who have ever used the Internet was 88.6pct, up 2.7 percentage points from the previous year (88.6pct compared to 85.9pct ), of which 94.3pct in the last 3 months, increasing by 3 percentage points compared to 2020 (94.3pct compared to 91.3pct). Among current users, 82.3pct use the Internet on a daily or near-daily basis, an increase of 3.2 percentage points over the previous year (82.3pct compared to 79.1pct).

By development regions, the share of people who have ever used the Internet was 93.2pct in the Bucharest-Ilfov region, which is the highest percentage in the country, followed by the West region with 92.2pct and North-West (91.3pct) region. At the opposite pole is the South-East region with 82.9pct.

The proportion of men who use or have ever used the Internet is slightly higher than that of women: 89.4pct compared to 87.8pct, the difference being 1.6 percentage points, decreasing compared to the previous year when there was a difference of 2.1 percentage point.

The share of people using the Internet decreases with age. Thus, the share of people using the Internet in the 16-34 age group was 98.4pct, while for the 55-74 age group it reached only 70.5pct.