Geostat: Social networks, banking, health are key purposes of internet use in recent months
According to the results of 2024 Survey on Information and Communication Technologies Usage in Households, 91.5 percent of households have internet access, which is 2.6 percentage points higher compared to the previous year, the National Statistic Service (GeoStat) reported.
The share of households with internet access increased by 1.4 percentage points for urban and by 4.1 percentage points for rural areas, reaching 94.5 and 87.5 percent, respectively. The highest values for this indicator are in Adjara A.R. and Tbilisi, 97.8 and 95.8 percent, respectively.
According to the survey results, 84.8 percent of the population aged 6 years and older has used the internet within the last 3 months, an increase of 2.1 percentage points compared to the previous year. The percentage of this indicator equals to 89.2 percent in urban and 77.7 percent in rural areas. This indicator is 85.1 percent for women and 84.5 percent for men. Among different age groups, the indicator is highest in the 15-29 age group, at 99.0 percent.
Among the population aged 15 years and older who have used the internet within the last 3 months, 94.8 percent use the internet every day or almost every day, 4.4 percent use it at least once a week (but not every day), and 0.7 percent use it less frequently (less than once a week).
According to the survey results, among the population aged 15 years and older who used internet within the last 3 months, the main reasons for internet use are: telephoning over the internet/video calls over the internet (94.7%), participating in social networks (94.6%), internet banking (50.4%), seeking health-related information (47.2%), reading online news/newspapers/ magazines (46.6%), finding information about goods and services (43.1%), sending/receiving e-mails (37.9%), downloading software or applications (other than games software) (15.5%) and looking for a job or sending/submitting a job application (11.8%).