Internet usage in Brazil grows to reach 90% of the country’s households in 2021

By 2021, 90 percent of Brazilian households will use the Internet, an increase of six percentage points compared to 2019, the Brazilian State Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) announced today.

In Brazil’s rural areas, household internet penetration increased from 57.8 to 74.7 percent between 2019 and 2021, while in urban areas, it rose from 88.1 to 92.3 percent.

According to IBGE, the Internet was used by 84.7 percent of the Brazilian population over the age of 10 last year – mainly students – representing 155.7 million people.

In 2021, cell phones were the primary device for Internet access in Brazilian households.

99.5 percent of all households with Internet access used it. For the first time, the television (44.4 percent) overtook the computer (42.2 percent) as the connection device.

More than half of those over 60 use the Internet for the first time, increasing from 44.8 percent to 57.5 percent between 2019 and 2021.

25- to 29-year-olds used the Internet the most in the past year.

“Proportionally, the group over 60 years old is the one that accesses the Internet the least, but from 2019 to 2021, the percentage of use by older people increased the most, from 44.8 percent to 57.5 percent, exceeding the 50 percent mark for the first time,” the IBGE report said.

2.2% of Brazilian households (equivalent to 1.5 million) did not have television access last year, 80.6% of them in urban areas.