KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 — Households with internet access increased to 96 per cent in 2022 compared to 94.9 per cent in 2021, says the latest report from the Department of Statistics Malaysia’s (DoSM).

In the ‘2022 ICT Use and Access by Individuals and Households Survey Report’ released today, DoSM noted that household access to mobile phones, radios and televisions remained above 95 per cent, but the access rate to pay television broadcasts was 76.9 per cent, down from 83.2 per cent in 2021.

The report also stated that the use of the internet among Malaysians aged 15 and above had increased from 96.8 per cent (2021) to 97.4 per cent (2022), where the most popular online activity in Malaysia was participating in social networks.

DoSM explained that the use of the internet had increased significantly for services related to finding information, communication, civics and politics, e-Government, entertainment, e-Commerce and other online services.

"Activities related to services increased by more than 3 percentage points. The activities related to services are finding information about goods or services, which increased to 92.5 per cent; uploading self-created content to a website (17.6 per cent); managing a personal homepage (10.3 per cent).

"Other activities related to services are performing tasks online to generate income (15.5 per cent); internet banking (74.8 per cent); listening to radio online (72.8 per cent); watching television online (68.1 per cent) and purchasing or ordering goods or services via e-Commerce (70.4 per cent),” read the report.

Based on the study, ICT skills which were one of the indicators monitored in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), had also improved.

Basic ICT skills activities include copying or transferring files using copy-and-paste techniques and sending emails with files.

Activities that require specific expertise, such as using basic arithmetic formulas in a spreadsheet and writing computer programmes using programming languages, had increased to 67.1 per cent and 23.5 per cent respectively.

Other activities also increased, such as connecting and installing new devices (79.2 per cent), searching, downloading, installing and configuring software (72.5 per cent) and creating electronic presentations using computer software (62.9 per cent).

The survey was carried out during the transition to the endemic phase, which allowed the community to return to almost normal life after two years of facing Covid-19. — Bernama