An increased number of businesses in Cyprus use ICT and internet services, data released by the Cyprus Statistical Service on Monday show.

In a press release on the results of a survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises 2021,CyStat says that demand for high speed internet connections (100 Mbit/s or more) has increased significantly over the years.

In 2021, 6.7% of all enterprises with 10 or more employed persons in Cyprus have internet connection with speeds higher than 1 Gbit/s, 7.9% have internet connection speeds between 500 Mbit/s – 1 Gbit/s and 30.2% have internet connection speeds between 100 - 500 Mbit/s.

Enterprises with internet speeds lower than 30 Mbit/s have been decreasing steadily over the years from 81.7% in 2016 to 15.5% in 2021. Speeds between 30 - 100 Mbit/s still remain the most popular in 2021, but have dropped since the previous year (-1.0%) while internet speeds between 100Mbit/s -500Mbit/s have increased significantly from 19.8% in 2020 to 30.2% in 2021.

It adds that cloud computing in Cyprus is becoming more and more popular among enterprises. In 2021, 50.3% of enterprises with ten or more employed persons bought Cloud Computing services, compared to 34.6% in 2020.

According to CyStat, the main use of cloud computing services in enterprises is for e-mail (41.9%), for security software applications (35.8%), for office software (34.4%) and for storage of files (30.3%).

In 2020, 18.8% of all enterprises received orders for goods and services via computer networks compared to 16.4% in 2019.  A total of 18.3% received orders for goods and services via websites or “apps” and 1.4% via EDI – type messages. The corresponding percentages for 2019 were 15.2% and 3.1% respectively.  A percentage of 15.9% of all enterprises received orders for goods and services via the enterprise’s own websites or “apps” while 7.8% received orders via e-commerce marketplace websites or “apps” used by several enterprises for trading products. At the same time, 17.5% of enterprises received orders via websites or “apps” from customers located in Cyprus, 7.8% from customers from other EU countries and 5.9% from customers from the rest of the world.

Over the years an increase in the use of social media is observed, the press release says, from 57.0% in 2015 to 77.1% in 2021.  Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn etc. were always the most favourable amongst enterprises. The second most favourable in 2021 was multimedia content sharing websites such as YouTube, Flickr, etc. followed by blogs or microblogs.

During 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 35.3% of all enterprises increased the number of employed persons having remote access to the email system of the enterprise, 32.9% increased the number of employed persons having remote access to the ICT systems of the enterprise (excl. email) and 54.4% increased the number of remote meetings conducted by the enterprise (e.g. via Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, etc.).

Furthermore, the press release says, 22.7% of all enterprises stated that due to the Covid-19 pandemic the enterprise started or increased its efforts to sell goods or services via the internet (websites, apps, marketplaces or EDI-type messages).

According to CyStat, 33.3% of enterprises declared that they use some kind of interconnected devices or systems (smart devices or systems) that can be monitored via the internet (IoT). The main reasons for using IoT were for premises’ security (32.1%), for energy consumption management (8.6%) and for logistics management (4.5%)