Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that number of households using the Internet totalled 191,800 in 2021, accounting for 94.6% of the total households, up by 2.7 percentage points year-on-year; this implied a further increase in the prevalence of Internet use. Number of households using mobile network to access the Internet grew by 4.6% year-on-year to 188,000, taking up 98.0% of the households who used the Internet, the same proportion as in 2020. Meanwhile, 90.1% (172,900) of the households used home broadband to access the Internet, an increase of 1.0 percentage point.
Internet users totalled 570,000, an increase of 0.7% year-on-year. The Internet penetration rate went up by 1.0 percentage point to 88.5%, with the rate for the population aged 15-24 being the highest, at 99.5%, up by 0.2 percentage points. As regards the elderly, 65.3% of the population aged 65 and above used the Internet, a rise of 9.4 percentage points, which indicated a growing trend of technology integration into the lives of the elderly. Besides, 68.3% of the population aged 3-14 used the Internet. With respect to the frequency of using the Internet, 95.5% of the Internet users used the Internet daily, up by 1.9 percentage points year-on-year; median daily hours spent online was 3 hours, the same as in the previous year.
Regarding the purpose of using the Internet, most of the users used the Internet for Communication (95.4%) and Online Entertainment (81.9%), with the respective shares dropping by 0.5 percentage points and 2.0 percentage points year-on-year; on the other hand, the proportion for E-banking (60.7%) grew by 9.7 percentage points. With the development of e-government services, 93.8% of the Internet users used online government services. In the fourth quarter of 2021, median total online shopping spending was MOP1,100, an increase of 10.0% year-on-year. Number of online shoppers purchasing clothing & footwear, handbags, cosmetic products, etc. topped at 128,700, up by 14.0% year-on-year; this was followed by those who purchased food, beverages, etc. online, at 73,300.
The mobile phone penetration rate remained steady year-on-year at 93.8%. The proportion of Internet users using mobile phones to access the Internet was the highest, at 95.0%, up by 0.5 percentage points year-on-year; meanwhile, the proportion of those using laptops/tablets to access the Internet grew by 4.8 percentage points to 38.1%.
There were 146,800 households with computer equipment (e.g. tablets, laptops), taking up 72.4% of the total households, up by 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. Meanwhile, the computer penetration rate rose by 0.7 percentage points to 49.6%.
Survey on Information Technology Usage in the Household Sector for 2021 was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2021 through a supplementary questionnaire of the Employment Survey, to collect data on information technology usage among the population aged 3 and above.