Every Tenth Bulgarian has Never Accessed the Internet

In 2023, 88.5% of households in Bulgaria have access to the Internet in their homes, according to a study by the National Statistical Institute (NSI). From there, they report a growth of 31.8% for the last 10 years. However, just over 10% of Bulgarians have never accessed the Internet.

The fewest households with Internet access are in the North-West region - 17.4% are not connected to the network. Although the percentage is the highest for the country, there is still a decline in this trend - a decade ago, nearly 60% of households in this part of Bulgaria did not have access to the Internet.

The southwestern region, which also includes Sofia, has the highest share of households with Internet access - 92.8%. Those living with children use the global network more actively, with 97.7% of them having access to the Internet, while this percentage for households without children is 87.1%.

Nearly 80% of people between the ages of 16 and 74 use the Internet daily or weekly, with students being the most active (99.3%). The number of people who have never surfed the Internet is also decreasing, as they are now 11.8%.

The most preferred device for accessing the Internet is the mobile phone (78.3%), and the main purpose for which it is used is communication. More than two-thirds of users choose to spend their time online in phone and video conversations (69%), 65.4% use it for messaging, and 64.2% use it for social networks. Reading news sites, newspapers and magazines online is a service that 59% of respondents do, with the biggest gender divide seen when looking for health information - 50.6% of women used the global web for this purpose, while 35.4% of men.

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