More than 20,6 million people between 16 and 74 years old were connected daily to Internet in Spain last year, according to the report entitled Sociodemographic Profile of Internet Users (2014), presented by the National Observatory of Telecommunications and the Information Society (ONTSI), dependent on the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, within the framework of a collaboration agreement with the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Sociodemographic Profile of Internet Users (2014). The report has been made with a sample of 15.574 homes. In each household, a member aged 16 and over and all children between the ages of 10 and 15 are randomly surveyed.
This figure constitutes a increase of 10,8% with respect to the previous year and certifies a greater penetration of Information and Communication technologies in Spain. The report also highlights that 29,5 million people aged 10 and over used the Internet at some point, a figure that represents an increase of 2% over the previous year.
Analyzing the Internet use by sociodemographic characteristics, the report shows that 98,5% of individuals aged 16 to 24 have accessed the Internet at some point. Students, in this way, have practically universal levels of use, since 99,1% of them have accessed the Internet at some time.
La relationship between family income and network use it also allows significant conclusions to be drawn. Thus, 95,5% of individuals with a net income per household greater than 3.000 euros per month access the Internet weekly, while this percentage drops to 49,5% in families with an average income of less than 900 euros.
La size of population nuclei it also has an obvious relationship in the implantation of the Internet. In cities with more than 500.000 inhabitants, the percentage of Internet users who access the Internet weekly is 78,8%, but it drops to 64,1% in municipalities with fewer than 10.000 inhabitants.
Regarding use made of the Internet by users who connect daily, the study concludes that the following:
- 90,5% send or receive email
- 90% seek information on goods and services
- 83,7% read news and press online
- 74,4% participate in social networks
- 36,3% make telephone calls or make video calls over the Internet
Furthermore:
- 58,3% play or download games, movies or music
- 52,6% upload their own content to share
- 42% listen to radio broadcast on the Internet
- 31,3% play online with other people
- 12,5% create web pages or blogs
One of the chapters of the study also refers to the use of services in the cloudand. 30,9% of Internet users in the last three months used storage space on the Internet. 26% also share files on the Internet. The cloud is used basically to save photos (83,8%), documents (66,6%), music (42,1%) and videos (40,5%).
All the top reasons for using the cloud by Spanish Internet users are:
- being able to share files with other people (72%)
- access files from different devices and locations (64,4%)
- protect against data loss (56,5%)
- have more memory space (53,5%)
- access extensive catalogs of music and other content (24,6%)
Instead, the non-use of the cloud is due to arguments such as the following:
- the preference for storing files on their own devices (69,4%)
- the choice of other sharing methods or the absence of it (50,6%)
- security or privacy reasons (39,4%)
- lack of knowledge (32,7%)
- insufficient trust in suppliers (24,6%)
One of the most illustrative graphs of Internet penetration in Spanish society is the one that reflects the evolution of the percentage of Internet users, from 2005 to 2014. This reflects that the number of Internet users from 16 to 74 years old with weekly access frequency, has gone from 35,1% to 71,2% in the last decade.
Analyzing the evolution of Internet users according to sociodemographic variables, it is observed that the percentages with the greatest increase since 2005 are registered in people between 45 and 54 years of age and individuals with the first stage of secondary education.
Download the full report here.