3.4 million people in Germany have never been online – Research

Admin l Tuesday, April 11, 2023

BERLIN – Around 3.4 million people in Germany between the ages of 16 and 74 live offline, according to statistics released on Tuesday.

The group, around 6% of the population, have never been online, the Federal Statistical Office data shows, with the figures referring to 2022.

A sixth of people aged between 65 and 74 have never been online, the figures showed.

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Meanwhile 5% of 45 to 64-year-olds have never used the internet. The proportion of people living offline below the age of 45 was 2%. The figures show Germany is roughly average compared to other countries in Europe. Across the EU, some 7% had never been online last year, the German authority said, citing Eurostat statistics authority.

However, there are significant differences between the EU countries. According to the data, in the Scandinavian countries, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland, less than 4% of 16- to 74-year-olds had never used the internet.

But in Greece and Portugal, some 14% of the same age range had never been online. Similarly, in Croatia and Bulgaria, 13% of people live offline.

A third of the global population, or around 34%, had no access to the internet last year, according to estimates by the International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations (ITU). That corresponds to about 2.7 billion people, the authority said.