Brussels, 23/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2015 published on 18 June, shows that most of the Digital Agenda targets for 2014 have already been achieved, such as the number of people regularly using internet or the availability of basic broadband.
The main achievements in EU's digital performance in the past year include significant progress in coverage and subscriptions to fast internet (both fixed and mobile) and the achievement of the Digital Agenda eGovernment use targets. Nonetheless, certain targets have still not been attained. The report concludes that the Digital Single Market Strategy presented on 6 May last by the European Commission was adopted at an opportune moment and that the targets that have not yet been attained can be if effective implementation of this strategy is carried out.
The report provides the following information:
Connectivity: 1) in the last two years, there have been 20 million more subscriptions to fast internet (at least 30Mbps) in the EU. However, fast subscriptions remain fewer than one third of total; 2) subscriptions 4G mobile broadband is available to 79% of households, up from 27% two years ago; 3) basic broadband is available to everyone in the EU, while fixed technologies cover 97% of households. Next Generation Access (NGA) networks, offering speeds above 30Mbps, cover 68% of households, up from 62% a year ago; 4) EU telecom operator revenues have been declining since 2010 (from €246 bn in 2010 to €230 bn in 2014), while in the US they are still growing (from €220 bn in 2010 to €266 bn in 2014); 5) internet users continue to increase, with 75% of the EU population reporting that they used the internet at least weekly in 2014 as opposed to 72% last year. For most people, use of the internet is a daily activity, with 65% of EU citizens reporting using it daily in 2014. Use by disadvantaged people has also increased, with 60% reporting using the internet at least weekly in 2014, against 57% a year earlier. However,18% of the EU population have still never used the internet (compared to 20% in 2013); 6) 40% of the population have insufficient digital skills. Given the large and growing demand for ICT professionals in the economy, this is leading to a skills gap projected to reach 825,000 unfilled vacancies by 2020. The biggest gaps are expected in Germany, the UK and Italy.
Use of Internet and Integration of Digital Technology (including eCommerce, cloud and online services): 1) more than half (57%) of EU Internet users use online banking; 2) close to two-thirds (63%) are shopping online (47% in 2013); cross-border online shopping is growing slowly (up by 6.5 percentage points in the last four years); 3) only 14.5% of SMEs sell online, which represents an increase of only 3.5 percentage points over five years; 4) 21% of individuals in the EU make use of cloud services to store files, while 15% do so for the purpose of sharing files. Young people are more than three times likely to use cloud services than those aged 55 and above; 5) 97% of businesses in the EU had an internet connection in 2014, but only 19% made use of cloud services.
Digital Public Services. 25% of the population uses eGovernment services to submit forms to public authorities online compared to 21% a year before (Digital Agenda target of 25% reached). However, while the majority of the most used public services are now available online, these online services are not yet user-friendly and transparent enough to overcome the barriers to use by the less digitally-skilled members of the population.
R&D in the digital sector: In its first year of implementation, Horizon 2020 has allocated €1.55 billion of EU funding to 545 projects in the field of ICT; 2) during the past year, Future Networks and Internet and the Micro/nanosystems are the research areas with the highest funding.
Every year for the past five years, the scoreboard has assessed the progress made in the digital sector at European and national levels (specific reports are available for each member state). In total, 101 targets were set out in the EU 2020 Strategy. (Isabelle Lamberty)