Computers were still the most used device to connect to the Internet in Brazil in 2013, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Phones and tablets, however, have become the exclusive appliance 11.5% of households.
The data comes from the National Survey by Household Sampling (PNAD), referring to 2013, made with the Ministry of Communications and published on recently.
According Jully Ponte, income coordination and technical work of the specialist institute IBGE, “compared to estimates collected by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2013, the percentage of households with internet access in Brazil, according to the estimate IBGE (48%) is below the average for European countries (76.2%) and America (54.6%).”
Change in research
by 2013, IBGE only recorded the connections made with a computer and now started to record the hits made with smartphones, tablets, connected TVs and other devices.
Out of the online homes, 88% used the computer to access the network; 53.6% used mobile phones; and 17.2%, tablets. According to IBGE, 7.1 million homes have tablets and 5.4 million of them were used to get on the internet in 2013.
Internet access was present in 31.2 million Brazilian households. The institute found that computers are solely responsible for connections in 42.4% of homes. Residents of 11.5% of households were using only mobile phones and tablets to connect.
PCs have advantage over mobile devices in 21 states plus the Federal District. What varies is the index: it is higher in Rondônia (61.1% versus 11.5%) and lowest in the Federal District (31.8% vs. 6.4%).
Mobile surpasses computers access in 5 states
“We observed that in the North, the use of mobile phones as Internet access vehicle exceeded the use of the computer,” says Jully Bridge, the IBGE. In five states, most of the internet access is done from mobile devices: Sergipe, Pará, Roraima, Amazonas and Amapá.
The latter is where mobile devices are the source connection for the highest percentage of homes, 43%; the computer reaches 11.9%.
“These data are from 2013. In 2014, we found a very large increase in sales of smartphones due to the smartphone exemption policy. So we think will still have an even greater effect when they leave the 2014 numbers, “says Pedro Araujo, project manager of the Brazilian Ministry of Communications.
Connection forms
In addition to the devices used to connect to the internet, the IBGE analyzed the forms of connection. Although broadband is a reality to 30.5 million homes (97.7% of total), dial-up is the form of access to 725,000 homes.
In the case of broadband households, 77% of them have fixed broadband and 43.5%, mobile. The northern region is the only one where the mobile internet coverage is greater than the fixed. Aside from Rondônia, this is what occurs in all northern states.
Araujo, the Ministry of Communications, said the addition of connections counted in 2014 “will have very significant impact in terms of access.”
“We did not take the 2014 data yet, but we believe we have added more than 50 million hits. I can not say by operators, there may even be that interest [digital inclusion], but regulatory obligation, until 2019, all municipalities will have to have mobile broadband, “he says.
Age for access
In a breakdown by age groups, the IBGE found that people between 15 and 17 years and 18 to 19 reported the highest rates of Internet users in 2013, with 76% and 74.2%, respectively.
In the age group between 40 and 49 years, 44.4% of total accesses the internet.
Only 21.6% of those over 50 years connects to the web. Among those who have over 60 years, the percentage of connected reached 12.6%. Although seem low, the index of elderly people with Internet access has more than doubled since 2008, when only 5.7% of them were online.
By income
According to the IBGE, access varies according to the network of people. The number of connected Brazilians ranged from 49.1% among those who either have no income or receive up to a quarter of the minimum wage, 95.7% of people who earned over ten minimum wage.
“We realize that the higher the household income per capita, the greater the number of people with mobile,” said Araujo, the from Ministry of Communications.
