Europe: 72% Of Homes Are Now Broadband-Connected; Online, News Reading Is Users? Favorite Pastime

It’s official: Europe is fast approaching a point at which broadband is becoming ubiquitous among consumers, and with it is coming a surge of popularity for online news, social media, and e-commerce. Today the European Commission released details for how European countries have been adopting broadband, and what they are using it for. The top-line figures: in 2012 72% of households now have a broadband connection. And in a survey of what it is that people do online, the most popular activity is newsreading, at 60%. The stats were released just as Neelie Kroes, the VP of the European Commission, prepares to give a speech in which she lays out priorities for the next year in European digital policy. Topics she’s she’s expected to cover include a 10-point plan for broadband growth; plans for copyright actions; and a new initiative for designing and manufacturing hardware — described informally as an “Airbus for chips” — to rival countries in Asia and North America. (You can watch that speech yourself here.) The stats were compiled by Eurostat, the Luxembourg-based directorate of the European Commission that provides statistics to EU institutions and also a unified measurement framework across the different member states. Europe on average has come a very long way in broadband penetration. Whereas in 2006 only 30% of the population had broadband access, now that figure is at 72%. Some countries like Denmark and Finland are now at 85% and significantly no country is at less than 50% penetration. Social media is one of the most popular categories for online activity. Some 52% of European residents with broadband connections use them to post messages to social media sites. Even more popular is reading: more than 60% of consumers use their broadband to read online news. But, in a sign of how “lean-back” is the order of the day, only 9% of them are creating their own blog or other website content. The figures also speak to platform consolidation online — people are increasingly going to sites like Facebook and Twitter to express themselves, and less so trying to create their own spaces online for the same purpose. Kroes today is laying out a seven-point plan for Europe’s digital agenda in the next year, which we’ll detail below. But one striking takeaway from Eurostat’s figures is that although we are laying the groundwork for basic broadband connectivity, when it comes to services

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