Canada continues to be one of the most ‘wired’ countries in the world. With nearly 87 per cent of Canadian households connected to the Internet, Canada ranks 16th globally in terms of Internet penetration in 2013. This is up from 80 per cent in 2010. Among its G8 counterparts, Canada ranks second in Internet penetration, behind the United Kingdom.
However, while Canada is among the most connected countries in the world, a set of ‘digital divides’ exist within its borders:
Source: OECD and Teligen
Canadians have long led the world in Internet usage. This trend continued in 2013, with Canadians visiting the most web pages visited per month (3,731), the highest in the world. They also ranked a close second behind the United States for the average number of hours spent online per user(41.3 hours per month).
Canadians’ Internet usage is much greater than their global counterparts.
The global average of pages visited per month by user was 2,278 in 2013, and the average number of hours spent online by user in 2013 was 24.6 per month.
Canadians tend to use different Internet-connected device for different activities. Social media is the top activity performed on portable devices, such as laptops and mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. The top activity in 2013 on desktop computers, however, was gaming. Playing games was an activity performed on all devices in 2013, ranking third on laptops, second on tablets and fourth on mobile devices.
In 2012-13, the primary activity for the average Internet user overall remains email (89 per cent), followed by banking (69 per cent) and hobbies/personal interests (64 per cent). However, email and banking are both steadily declining as reasons for using the Internet among Internet users and have declined from 95 per cent and 81 per cent respectively in 2010).
Video phone services such as Skype and Facetime have emerged as one of the fastest growing reasons for using the Internet (growing from 10 per cent in 2010 to 29 per cent in 2013) as well as playing games (from 26 per cent in 2010 to 54 per cent in 2013).
While Canadians are heavy users of the Internet for a wide variety of activities, Canadian businesses have been slow to develop an online presence. Only 45.5 per cent of Canadian businesses have a website. For Canadian small businesses – a significant portion of Canada’s private sector – this number drops to 41.1 per cent. While low, this percentage is on par with American businesses. In 2013, Google reported that 58 per cent of U.S. businesses do not have a website.
According to ComScore reports, Canadian online spending rose to $22.3 billion.
Canadian businesses might want to establish a web presence sooner rather than later, as the value of e-commerce in Canada is increasing. ComScore reported that in 2012, e-commerce spending in Canada rose by 10 per cent to $22.3 billion. Furthermore, e-commerce transactions have increased by 17 per cent in 2012 to more than 105,000.
While Canadians have generally been early adopters of technology, this was not the case for mobile up to this point. This was likely due to the robust landline telecommunications infrastructure that exists in Canada. However, mobile usage, especially with smartphones, has been steadily increasing among Canadians. In 2013, they were not unlike their global counterparts:
ComScore: Mobile subscribers
in Canada, 2012 and 2013
Source: TNS Mobile Life
The majority of Canadians use their smartphone for accessing the Internet (82 per cent), but texting remained the top activity performed on their device. The top five activities performed on a smartphone by Canadians including the following:
Certain activities, like watching video on a mobile device, are increasing quickly. In fact, the percentage of smartphone users in Canada that use their device to watch video or television increased by 21 points since 2012 to 37 per cent in 2013.
Smartphone users are also using more innovative productivity features, such as Global Positioning System (43 per cent), scanning QR codes (26 per cent) and the ability to use programs like Microsoft Office (25 per cent). Twenty-eight per cent of Canadians use their mobile device to conduct banking activities, and 18 per cent have used their mobile device to pay for products or services (TNS Mobile).