Dutch people mostly use the cloud for free
Dutch internet users aged between 16 to 75 tend to store their files more often through cloud computing than internet users elsewhere in Europe. However, they pay less often for this than people in other EU countries do for similar use. In terms of cloud use, the Netherlands ranks sixth in the EU with 36 percent (average 27 percent). Some 10 percent pay for it, whereas the EU average is 11 percent. This is reported by Statistics Netherlands today.
Young and highly educated people use the cloud more often
Young internet users in the Netherlands (up to age 25) use cloud services more often than the over 55s: 51 versus 20 percent. The use of cloud computing increases with the level of education. A quarter of Dutch people with low levels of education use cloud computing, compared to 46 percent of highly educated people. Men do so more often than women: 39 versus 34 percent.
Cloud users usually have more internet skills than non-users. This difference in skills helps explain the difference in cloud computing between younger and older people.
Mainly photographs in the cloud
In the EU the cloud, in fact a data centre, is mainly used to store photographs. This is done by nearly a quarter of the European internet users. The Netherlands ranks third with 33 percent.
The internet users further store text files, spread sheets and presentations in the cloud. This is done by an average of 15 percent of EU internet users and 23 percent of the users in the Netherlands. Music, e-books or e-magazines and videos, films or TV programmes are also likely to be stored in the cloud, but fewer than one in five internet users in the EU do so.
Dutch people pay about the EU average
Dutch people pay about as often for cloud services as the average internet users in the EU, although Dutch usage is above average. Some 10 percent of the Dutch cloud users pay for cloud services, compared to an 11 percent average in the EU.
People can use most cloud services for free, up to a certain limit. Danes and Swedes pay most often for their services, with 19 percent. Here relatively many people make use of the service.
Some 59 percent of the cloud users in the EU use the service to put files on a server so they can be used by different devices. An equal number of people use the service to share files with others, whereas 55 percent use it for back-up to prevent data from getting lost. Some 44 percent are in the cloud because of its extra storage space.
Reasons not to use the cloud
Nearly three in ten internet users in the EU is aware of cloud computing, whereas over a quarter is unaware of its existence. The main reason not to use cloud computing is that users store data on their own devices or barely store data at all.
Security and privacy are also major reasons for not using the cloud. Some 24 percent of the Dutch internet users state that they are worried about security and privacy, compared to 13 percent in the EU.
Source: Eurostat.