Internet users in Mexico grow but one in two say that their speed to navigate is very slow

1922

In 2019 there was a record of Mexicans connected to the internet. In total, there were 80.6 million 95% of whom use a smartphone to connect to the network. In reality, all internet access devices have more presence than in 2018 except one: the desktop computer.

The data comes from the update of the National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technologies in Homes (ENDUTIH), the most complex and complete tool of its kind that is structured every year by INEGI, SCT, and IFT.

As every year, there are trends that are perpetrated but there are other novelties.

Slow data transfer, the main problem of the connected

The desktop computer is the only loser of devices used to connect because 28.9% of the total Internet users use it to connect, less than 32% in 2019. Regarding connection problems, although Mexico is progressively migrating to the fiber optical, a large portion of the Internet users say that speed is their biggest problem. Specifically, it is estimated that one in two Internet users consider their browsing speeds to be very slow.

However, the closing of the digital divide in Mexico had not had, since the ENDUTIH is performed annually, such positive numbers. The best progress of more connected people had occurred between 2016 and 2017 when almost six million Mexican Internet users joined. That figure was now exceeded between 2018 and 2019, as it went from 74.3 million to 80.6 million Internet users, that is, an increase of 6.3 million representing an increase of 4.3 percentage points.

Despite the progress, Mexico barely has seven of each people connected to the network, well below the nine out of ten connected that reaches South Korea, the United Kingdom, Sweden or Spain.

There is an interesting fact regarding the type of applications downloaded by smartphone users in Mexico. All categories have increases of between 2% and 4% (social media apps, instant messaging, to access audio and video content, etc.) but only two categories have increases of more than 7%, equivalent to 3.3 million new users: the category of “acquiring goods or services” and “apps to access mobile banking”.In Mexico, there are a total of 76.2 million users with smartphones according to ENDUTIH. Of them, 48.3 million installed apps. This means that just over three out of ten people with a smartphone do not download applications.

Finally, the issue of guaranteeing the internet in rural areas is still a pending issue, although 2019 was a year of emergence in the coverage of internet services in rural areas. While in urban areas it is estimated that 76% of the population has an internet connection, in rural areas the percentage drops to 47%.

The upper graphs show the progress in 2019. While from 2017 to 2018, less than two percentage points in connected population in rural areas were advanced, from 2018 to 2019, a little more than seven percentage points were advanced.

Source: xataka.com.mx

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