Almost half of the European citizens, 43 percent, used the Internet regularly, at least once a week, last year, according to a Eurostat survey that analyzed internet access in EU25, Norway and Iceland.

The countries that take the most advantage of the Internet are Sweden (76%), Holland (74%) and Denmark (73%) whereas the least internet users are Greece (18%), Czech Republic and Cyprus (26% each).

More than 23 percent of the European Internet users bought online goods and services. Among the favorites, there were tourism services and books, cloths and sports wear. The least purchased online were food products and financial services.

Online shopping is very common in Sweden (50.3%), UK (44.1%) and Denmark (48%), but not very popular yet in the Baltic countries (Lithuania 2.2% and Latvia 4.8%), in Greece (2.5%), Cyprus(5.1%), Czech Republic (5.5%) and Portugal(5.8%).

In terms of age, Internet is broadly used by people between 16 and 24, but for commercial purposes by people aged 25 – 55.

The European companies employ the internet for promoting their own products (87%), especially for catalogues and price listing (46%) and for offering their services (24%).

Internet sales account for 2.5 % of the companies’ turnovers.