Britain is beating France, Germany, Italy and Spain in these 5 key tech metrics
Britain has marched ahead of its European tech rivals with its internet connectivity with the lowest number of non-internet users and the highest take up of broadband, according to Ofcom’s European Broadband Scorecard.
1. Lowest proportion of people who have never used the internet, at just eight per cent
A drop from the 11 per cent reported in 2011, and still better than the amount of unconnected citizens in Germany (13 per cent), Spain (24 per cent) and Italy (a massive 34 per cent).
2. Highest broadband take-up, at 83 per cent
The UK is leading in Europe in both basic broadband and superfast (nine per cent of households have broadband speeds above 30Mbit/s).
3. Best coverage of basic broadband, superfast broadband and mobile broadband in Europe
Britain’s mobile and basic broadband coverage is equivalent to most of the rest of Europe (at between 95 and 100 per cent), and the UK has overtaken Germany with superfast broadband coverage of 75 per cent (Germany sits at 70 per cent coverage).
4. Highest proportion of people to have bought goods online over the last year, at 77 per cent
Britain is leading Europe in online transactions by a long way – yesterday Twitter reported that 94 per cent of its 15m UK users are engaging in mobile commerce – miles far ahead of Italy’s 20 per cent of citizens who shop online.
5. Highest weekly usage of the internet, at 87 per cent
Finally the British edge out ahead of both Germany (80 per cent) and France (78 per cent) in their weekly internet use.
Britain isn’t dominating in every metric though, Ofcom reports that only 41 per cent of UK citizens interact online with local and national government, far behind France’s 60 per cent – but still not as bad as Italy’s 21 per cent.