Eurostat: Bulgaria Ranks Low in Internet Access

Bulgaria is among the EU member states with the lowest share of internet access. Photo by BGNES

Even though the level of internet access in Bulgaria doubled for the period 2006-2010, the country is still among the countries with the lowest share, according to Eurostat data on Internet access and use in 2010.

The data published by the statistical office of the European Union has showed that in 2006 only 17% of Bulgarians had access to Internet, while the share for 2010 is 33%.

For 2010, the highest shares were recorded in the Netherlands (91%), Luxembourg (90%), Sweden (88%) and Denmark (86%), and the lowest in Romania (42%) and Greece (46%).

The proportion of households with a broadband connection also rose in every EU member state in 2010 compared to 2006. Sweden (83%) registered the highest share, followed by Denmark (80%), Finland (76%) and Germany (75%), while Romania (23%), Bulgaria (26%) and Greece (41%) had the lowest.

On the other hand, there was a very significant difference in the use of internet for posting messages to chat sites, blogs and social networks by age. Four fifths of internet users aged 16-24 in the EU used the internet for this purpose during 2010, compared with two fifths of those aged 25-54 and less than one fifth of those aged 55-74.

Use of this form of communication was particularly high for all age groups in Poland, Portugal and Lithuania.

Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia were the countries who used the internet for phone and video calls the most.

In all EU member states, one third of those aged 16-24, one quarter of those aged 25-54 and one fifth of those aged 55-74 used this form of connection in 2010.

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