Eight out of ten online users surf daily
The Internet has become part of everyday life for Swiss men and women: The proportion of heavy users has risen over the past 10 years from less than one-third to more than two-thirds today. This is shown by the Net-Metrix-Base 2013-1 study.
Using the Internet is part of everyday life for most Swiss people, whether for private purposes or in the work environment. This is confirmed by the latest Net-Metrix-Base study: 85 percent of the resident population of Switzerland and Liechtenstein have used the Internet in the last six months, and 79 percent or around five million even surf the Web several times a week or more.
While the proportion of offliners is slowly leveling off at around 15 percent after a continuous decline (2010: 17.6 percent offliners), constant growth is still evident among the group of heavy users: from 3.8 million users who use the Internet daily or almost daily in 2010 to 4.4 million in the current year. A typical heavy user is male, between 20 and 50 years old, has a higher school education and works in a more urban environment. He uses between 2 and 3 devices for his Internet consumption and surfs from home, but also while on the move. The heavy user uses the Internet primarily to receive and send e-mails (95.1 percent), to obtain information via search engines (94.4 percent) and to retrieve daily news (78.8 percent).
The typical offliner, on the other hand, is female, over 60 years old, has a compulsory school education and is retired. In general, the proportion of women in the online community is still lower at 81.3 percent than that of men at 88.9 percent.
The proportion of heavy users varies greatly from one economic area to another. The economic areas of Zurich, Basel and Zug have the largest proportion of heavy users, accounting for around three quarters of the resident population. In contrast, less than 60 percent of the population in Ticino, the Bernese Oberland and the Upper Valais can be counted as heavy users.
