One of every four Brazilians has no internet access

One of every four people in Brazil has no access to the internet. In total terms, this represents some 46 million with no web access.

The figures come from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey – Information Technology and Communication, released today (Apr. 29) by government statistics agency IBGE, and cover the last three months of 2018.

The data also show that the percentage of Brazilians with internet access increased between 2017 and 2018 from 69.8 to 74.7 percent. Still, in rural areas, the proportion of people with no access to the web stands at 53.5 percent, compared to 20.6 percent in urban areas.

Nearly half of the people with no internet (41.6%) say that the reason is they do not know how to use it. One of every three (34.6%) says they are not interested. For 11.8 percent of them, internet access services are expensive, and 5.7 percent believe the equipment required to go online—like cell phones, laptops, and tablets—are also costly.

No service

For 4.5 percent of people living across the country with no access to the internet, services are not available in their location. This percentage is higher in the North—13.8 percent. In the Southeast, this rate stands at 1.9 percent.

“Therefore, in order to reach these people and increase internet access throughout the country, investing in availability in the North may be an answer,” said survey manager Maria Lucia Vieira.

Internet at home

The rate of households with internet access also rose from 2017 to 2018, going from 74.9 to 79.1 percent. “The faster growth in internet use in rural households helped reduce the sharp contrast with urban areas,” the study reads. From 2017 to 2018, the percentage of homes where internet is used went from 80.2 to 83.8 percent in urban regions and from 31 to 49.2 percent in the country.