The percentage of households that used the Internet increased from 74.9% to 79.1% between 2017 and 2018. The per capita average income of those who used the Internet was nearly twice the income of those who did not use the network.

Cell phones were the most used equipment to access the Internet, found in 99.2% of the households with this service. Microcomputers were the second one, though used in 48.1% of the houses. On the other hand, the access to the Internet through TV increased from 16.1% to 23.3% of the households between 2017 and 2018.

This is part of the information of the IBGE´s Continuous PNAD, which surveyed the access to Information and Communication Technology - ICT by Brazilian households in the fourth quarter of 2018.

The per capita average income of those who used tablets to browse the Internet was twice the income of those who accessed the network through cell phones and 37.7% higher than those who used computers.

The connection through mobile broadband (3G or 4G) remained leading (80.2%), though the percentage of users of the landline broadband (75.9%) was getting closer. In the 2016-2018 period, the households that used both types of broadband tended to grow and the use of only one type of connection retracted.

Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of persons who had their own cell phones rose from 78.2% to 79.3%, reaching 82.9% in urban areas and 57.3% in rural areas. In contrast, the proportion of households with landline phones dropped from 31.6% to 28.4% in this period.

The percentage of persons who made a voice call through the Internet increased from 83.8% in 2017 to 88.1% in 2018. The proportion of persons who accessed the network to watch videos also rose in the same period, from 81.8% to 86.1%.

Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of households with pay TV changed from 32.9% to 31.8%. In the urban area, this percentage fell from 35.6% to 34.3% and, in the rural area, it increased from 14.1% to 14.9% in this period. Nearly 51.8% of those who did not have this service considered it expensive.

Between 2017 and 2018, the proportion of households that did not have pay TV and replaced it by the program schedule available on the Internet rose from 2.4% to 3.5%. The support material of Continuous PNAD TIC is on the right side.

Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of the use of the Internet in the households increased from 74.9% to 79.1%. The accelerated growth of the use of the Internet in rural households, in every region – from 41.0% in 2017 to 49.2% in 2018 – helped to reduce the difference in relation to the urban area, where the use of the Internet rose from 80.2% to 83.8%.

In addition, the per capita average real income of the households that used the Internet (R$1,769) was nearly twice the income of those that did not use the network (R$940). The large difference between these two income was registered in every region of the country.

In the 14,991 thousand households in Brazil that did not use the Internet, the three reasons that mostly stood out (84.4%) were: lack of interest to access the Internet (34.7%), expensive access service to the Internet (25.4%) and lack of knowledge on how to use the Internet among the residents (24.3%). In the additional 7.5% of the households, residents reported the unavailability of the network in the household area and 4.7% mentioned the high cost of the electronic equipment for the connection.

In urban areas, the percentage of households that did not use the Internet which mentioned the three major reasons highlighted above reached 91.5%. On the other hand, in rural areas, the unavailability of the access service to the Internet in the household area represented 20.8%, against only 1.0% in urban areas.

Nearly all households that use the Internet access it through cell phones

Among the equipment used to browse the network, cell phones kept a leading position in 2018, close to the total number (99.2%) of households that accessed the Internet. In 2017, this percentage was 98.7%. Also, a growth trend was observed in the percentage of those who used only cell phones: 38.6% in 2016, then 43.3% in 2017 and then 45.5% in 2018.

Microcomputers were the second mostly used equipment. They were present in 48.1% of the households with Internet, a lower percentage than in 2017 (52.4%). Also, the use of tablets decreased from 15.5% in 2017 to 13.4% in 2018.

In contrast, the access through TV increased the most, from 16.1% in 2017 to 23.3% in 2018, though it was still a low percentage of Brazilian households investing in this resource. Such accelerated growth occurred in every region of the country.

Income influenced the type of equipment used. The per capita average income in the households that used the Internet through tablets and TV were, in general, quite higher: R$3,538 and R$3,111, respectively. On the other hand, the value was nearly half (R$1,765) in the households that used cell phones to access the Internet.

Use of dial-up connection closes to zero, mobile broadband hits 80.2%

Concerning the type of connection used, both the mobile (3G/4G) and the landline broadband gradually increased. In the households that used the Internet, the percentage of those using mobile broadband changed from 77.3% in 2016 to 78.6% in 2017 and hit 80.2% in 2018. In contrast, the percentage of those using landline broadband increased from 71.4% in 2016 to 73.5% in 2017 and hit 75.9% in 2018.

On the other hand, the dial-up connection was becoming more and more irrelevant, having changed from 0.6% in 2016 to 0.4% in 2017 and dropping to 0.2% in 2018.

In the North Region, the percentage of the households with landline broadband was only 53.4%, whereas it varied from 74.7% to 78.5% in the other regions. In that region, the mobile network had a percentage of use of 89.7%.

Unlike other Brazilian regions, the landline broadband was more used than the mobile broadband in the Northeast: in 2018, 64.1% of the Northeastern households with Internet used mobile connection, against 77.9% that used the landline one. These percentages varied from 82.3% and 89.7% in the other regions.

The percentage of households with either a landline or mobile broadband rose from 52.3% in 2017 to 56.3% in 2018. Conversely, the proportion of households that used only the connection through mobile broadband fell from 25.2% to 23.3%, whereas the percentage of those that used only landline broadband dropped from 20.2% to 19.0%.

Access to Internet is higher among women and youngsters

Nearly three quarters (74.7%) of the Brazilian population  aged 10 years and over (181.9 million persons) accessed the Internet in the reference period of the Continuous PNAD, a rise of 4.9 percentage points over 2017 (69.8%). In this period, the percentage of usage rose from 74.8% to 79.4% in the urban area and from 39.0% to 46.5% in the rural area, where it remained under 50%.

Nearly 75.7% of women used the Internet in 2018, a percentage slightly higher than that recorded among men: 73.6%.

The age group that mostly used the Internet in 2018 was that between 20 and 24 years, reaching 91.0% of the public within this group. However, all the age groups increased their usage between 2017 and 2018, with that between 55 and 59 years registering the most significant increase.

Although the schooling level influenced, the dissemination of the Internet usage has also contributed to increase its usage by segments of lower schooling levels. In 2018, the percentage of persons who used the Internet was 12.1% among those without education, 55.5% among those with incomplete primary education and hit 98.3% at the incomplete higher education level.

Number of persons who use the Internet for voice and video calls grows

The purpose of the usage was also investigated. The percentage of persons who accessed the Internet to send or receive images, voice or text messages through applications other than email did not change significantly between 2017 and 2018, though this remained as the main purpose, standing at 95.7% in 2018.

In 2016, 73.3% of the persons used the network for voice or video calls, rising to 83.8% in 2017 and to 88.1% in 2018. Following the same trend, the percentage of those who accessed the Internet to watch videos changed from 76.4% in 2016 to 81.8% in 2017, reaching 86.1% in 2018.

79.3% of persons aged 10 years and over have cell phones

The percentage of persons who had cell phones for personal use in the population aged 10 years and over slightly increased, from 78.2% in 2017 to 79.3% in 2018. In 2018, 80.7% of women and 77.8% of men had cell phones for personal use.

In regional terms, the percentages of persons who used cell phones were low in the North (67.4%) and Northeast (70.7%) in 2018. The highest proportion was in the Central-West (86.2%), followed by the South (84.3%) and Southeast (84.1%).

In 2018, this indicator reached 82.9% in the urban areas and 57.3% in the rural ones.

The age group in which the ownership of cell phones was more frequent was that between 30 and 34 years (90.3%) and the lowest frequency was the group between 10 and 13 years (43.5%). Among the elderly aged 60 years and over, 64.1% had cell phones, the second lowest percentage among the age groups.

The percentage of persons aged 10 years and over who had cell phones for personal use in 2018 was higher among those with higher schooling level, encompassing 37.3% of those without any education and 97.9% of those who completed higher education.

Among the reasons alleged by the interviewees for not having cell phones for personal use, four stood out: high cost of the device (28.0%), lack of interest (24.2%), did not know how to use it (19.8%) and habit of using another person´s cell phone (16.6%).

5.1% of households remain without any type of telephone

In 2018, 5.1% of the permanent private households in Brazil had neither landline nor mobile telephones. This result did not change in relation to 2017. In 2018, 28.4% of the Brazilian households had a conventional landline telephone and this percentage strongly retreated in relation to 2017 (31.6%). The parcel of those that had mobile cell phones remained unchanged between 2017 and 2018 (93.2%).

The per capita average real income of the parcel of households without landline phones (R$728) stood below that of the households that had them (R$1,643).

Microcomputers and tablets diminishing in households

The results between 2016 and 2018 pointed out a slow decline in the proportion of households with microcomputers: they represented 43.4% of the total in 2017 and 41.7% in 2018. In this period, the percentage fell from 47.9% to 46.0% in the urban area, whereas the decrease was minimal in the rural area (from 14.7% to 14.3%).

Tablets were much less common in households than computers. Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of households with tablets reduced even more, from 13.8% to 12.5%. In urban areas, the indicator changed from 15.1% to 13.8% and, in rural areas, from 4.7% to 3.8%.

The per capita average income was an important indicator for the presence of such devices. In 2018, it was R$957 for the households that had neither microcomputers nor tablets and R$2,404 for those that had at least one of them.

The average income of the households only with tablets was R$1,305, whereas that of the households that had only microcomputers was R$2,046, reaching R$3,798 in those that had both devices.

Income of those who have wide screen TVs is quite higher

The percentage of households that had TVs remained virtually stable: 96.4% (in 2017, they were 96.7%). The difference between the values of the per capita average real income of the households with TVs (R$1,620) and without TVs (R$954) was significant.

The proportion of households with wide screen TVs significantly increased (from 69.8% to 74.3%) and the rate of households with CRT TVs retracted (from 38.8% to 31.9%). The per capita average real income of the households with wide screen TVs (R$1,875) was quite higher than those with CRT TVs (R$1,008). The difference was even higher among the households that had only one of these two types of TV: R$761 (only CRT) against R$1,922 (only wide screen).

The number of households with TVs with converters (either integrated or adapted) to receive the digital signal of open TV also rose. In 2018, 86.6% of the households with TVs had converters; in 2017, 79.8%. The largest increase took place in the North (70.6% to 81.5%) and Northeast (67.9% to 76.2%) regions.

Satellite dishes, a resource to capture TV signal in areas not fully served by terrestrial antennas, reduced in the Brazilian houses, from 32.4% in 2017 to 30.0% in 2018. This indicators fell from 26.8% to 24.6% in urban areas and from 70.5% to 66.7% in rural areas.

The per capita average income of the households with satellite dishes (R$1,160) was lower than that of the households with TVs without this type of antenna (R$1,817). This occurred both in urban areas (R$1,318 against R$1,879) and rural areas (R$763 against R$863).

Brazil still has 2.1 million households only with TVs with analog signal

In 2018, Brazil still had 2,142 million households without converters, that did not receive TV signal through satellite dishes nor had pay TV service.

From 2017 to 2018, the Continuous PNAD TIC pointed out a quick reduction in the proportion of households without any access to TV other than analog signal: from 6.2% to 3.1% of the Brazilian households. In urban areas, the drop was from 6.1% to 3.0% and, in rural areas, from 6.8% to 4.1%.

Pay TV service drops in urban areas and increases in rural areas

Between 2017 and 2018, the percentage of households with pay TV changed from 32.9% to 31.8%. In urban areas, it dropped from 35.6% to 34.3% and, in rural ones, it rose from 14.1% to 14.9%. The Southeast remained with the highest percentage of households with pay TV (41.4%). And the Northeast remained with the lowest one (17.6%).

The per capita average income of the households with pay TV (R$2,721) exceeded by far those without this service (R$1,106). In rural areas, the difference was 60.7% (R$726 against R$1,197) and, in urban areas, 41.8% (R$1,178 against R$2,818). The difference between the per capita income of the households with pay TV and of those with satellite dishes was 42.6% (R$2,721 against R$1,160).

Among the reasons reported for not acquiring the pay TV service, 51.8% considered it expensive and 42.5% did not have any interest. The proportion of households without pay TV increased because the interviewees replaced this service by program schedule through the Internet: they represented 3.5% of the total number of households with TVs in 2018 against 2.4% in 2017 and 1.5% in 2016.