Internet access by cell phone increased from 86.8% to 89.3%

During the third quarter of the year 2022, 89.3% of the population that uses the Internet, do it through a cell phone (being cell phone with or without data plan), increasing in 2.5 percentage points by comparing with the same quarter of the last year (86.8%); this was informed by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) in the technical report Statistics of the Information and Communication Technologies in Households, prepared with the results of the National Household Survey (ENAHO).

By residence area, the greater percentage growth was reported in Metropolitan Lima (5.0 percentage points) by going from 86.3% to 91.3%, followed by the rural area (2.9 percentage points) from 85.6% to 88.5% and the urban area (0.6 percentage point) by going from 87.4% to 88.0%.

Likewise, from the total of the Internet user’s population, 46.6% did it through a cell phone without any data plan, followed by the 43.0% that used a cell phone with data plan, 17.9% through a laptop, 16.6% through a computer, 3.5% used a Tablet and the 10.6% other type of device such as a Smart TV.

By comparing these results with the same quarter of the year 2021, it was registered increases between the Internet users through a cell phone with data plan (4.5 percentage points) and those that uses a Computer (2.3 percentage points). Nevertheless, it decreased in 1.8 percentage points between the population that access the Internet through mobile telephony without data plan and those that uses a Tablet in 0.8 percentage point, among the main ones.

During the quarter under analysis, 95.4% of the households of the country have at least one Information and Communication Technology; 1.7 percentage points more than the same quarter of the year 2019. On the other hand, 4.6% of the households of the country did not have any of these technologies.

The INEI informed that in the 94.4% of the households of the country there is at least one member with cell phone, coverage that keeps without showing significative variations compared with the same quarter of the last year. According to residency area, the coverage of the households of Metropolitan Lima as well as the urban area was of 96.9% for both cases and in the rural area of 85.1%.

It is worth to mention that, by comparing with the third quarter of the year 2019 (pre-pandemic), the access of the households to the mobile phone increased in all the residence areas.

76.8% of the households of Metropolitan Lima had the Internet service, it means that it increases in 5.7 percentage points more than compared to the same quarter of the last year (71.1%). Also, there were increases in the urban area by going from 59.4% to 61.9% and at the level of the households of the country, from 54.9% to 58.2%.

During the third quarter of the current year, 74.2% of the population of the country aged 6 years old and over uses the Internet. According to residence area, in Metropolitan Lima the Internet user’s population reached 87.2%, followed by the urban area 78.4% and in the rural area in 42.8%.

The INEI informed that the 75.6% of men aged 6 years old and over used the Internet, meanwhile that between women it reached 72.7% of this population segment, having a gender gap of 2.9 percentage points in favor of men.

The 95.0% of the population aged 19 to 24 years old and the 88.8% of population aged 12 to 18 years old are the largest Internet users, followed by the 87.1% aged 25 to 40 years old, 70.5% aged 41 to 59 years old, 59.5% of the children aged 6 to 11 years old and 36.4% of the population aged 60 years old and over.

During the quarter under study, 96.9% of the population with university superior education uses the Internet in a greater proportion followed by the 94.9% with non-university superior education population. In a lower percentage accessed the population with high-school education (83.8%) and the population with elementary and lower level of education (44.9%).