18 - 24 May 2000

Survey shows over 40,000 Internet users in Malta

by David Kelleher

There are over 40,000 Internet users in Malta, a survey carried out by local Internet Service Provider Terranet Ltd, has found.

This figure puts to rest the myth that Internet usage in Malta is on the low side and many do not have access because the service is too expensive. This is one of the first surveys carried out locally to gauge exactly the number of Internet users. Over the past year or two, the number of Internet users has been calculated at around 25,000, including government workers and university staff and students.

Keith Fearne, managing director of Terranet, said that the survey found that there are over 22,000 households online, representing 21 per cent of households.

"Our findings show that Malta is on par with Germany in terms of penetration, and ahead of countries like Spain and France," Mr Fearne said. Details of the survey will be given this morning at the Telecoms 2000 conference being held at the Hilton. Mr Fearne is one of the main speakers.

"We have conducted research on Internet penetration in Malta, and our results show that the doom scenario painted in the past that penetration in Maltese households is low, is a myth.

"Our studies show that with an average use of 1.82 persons per household the figure for users is over 40,000. This does not include university, business and government," Mr Fearne told The Malta Business Weekly.

The survey was carried out in a telephone interview with 1,000 households three weeks ago.

"A normal survey would require a sample of 300 households, however to strengthen our findings we choose to take a sample of 1,000. Compared to other studies, the results are within the normal range of error," Mr Fearne told The Malta Business Weekly.

"We always felt that the perception many had about the use of Internet in Malta was not right and this survey confirmed what we believed," he added.

The 22 per cent figure compares favourably to other European countries. Research shows that Spain (10.5 per cent), France (12.10 per cent) and Germany (20.7) have a lower penetration than Malta. The figure for the UK stands at 27 per cent while Sweden and the US lead the pack with 49 per cent and 51 per cent respectively.

One of the reasons for this high penetration is that contrary to the perception that Internet access in Malta is expensive, research shows that during the past years, Malta was actually providing some of the cheapest access to the residential users in Europe.

"When one compares usage pricing to a recently published average for OECD countries, Malta is some 22 per cent cheaper than the average for 40 hours of evening usage.

"Extending this to 150 hours of daytime use, then a Maltese user would be saving up to Lm70 per month when compared to the majority of European countries. One of the reasons for this is that Malta is one of the very few countries in Europe who have flat rate unmetered pricing on the telco connection to the ISP. All countries across Europe have now announced similar offerings to be introduced later this year," Mr Fearne said.

The 40,000 user figure is also backed by the fact that there are around 51,000 households with a PC. This means that 43 per cent of households in Malta owns a PC. Compared to data in magazine Connectis, published by the Financial Times, Malta has one of the highest PC penetrations second only to Sweden in Europe.

According to the magazine, PC penetration stands at 37.3 per cent in the UK, 26.6 per cent in France, 27.4 per cent in Spain, 35 per cent in Germany, 64 per cent in Sweden and 51 per cent in the United States. Malta, therefore has a higher PC penetration that the UK, France, Spain and Germany.

Mr Fearne also pointed out that these figures show that Malta has now reached the critical mass required to make e-commerce worth its while. "With these sort of numbers, its just a matter of having enough online for people to be able to buy. This is in effect access to some Lm110 million of spending power. We are not saying that all this will go online, but even one per cent of this makes interesting numbers.

"At e-shore we have invested in world class technology to enable secure Internet transactions to take place in Malta too, and we have international clients using our services. There is a real potential for local online commerce , and we will be announcing some interesting deals over the next weeks. Being there first is very important in this business," Mr Fearne added.

e-shore is the e-commerce brand of Terranet Ltd, and offers a complete range of Internet business solutions. Further information may be obtained at sales@e-shore.com.mt.