Tech Roundup, Sep. 6, 2019 | The demographics of Brazil’s internet users

You’re reading The Brazilian Report’s weekly tech roundup, a digest of the most important news on technology and innovation in Brazil. This week’s topics: A look at how Brazilians connect to the internet (something inaccessible for 48 million people). Ride-hailing and delivery apps already eat up to 16 percent of Brazilians’ budget. Google under investigation. E-commerce behemoth AliExpress to open its first physical store in Brazil.

A look into how Brazilians connect to the internet

Year after year, Brazilians are becoming more and more dependent on the internet. This upwards trend is clear in the latest survey from the Regional Center of Studies for the Development of the Information Society (CETIC.br). Over the past three months, 70 percent of the Brazilian population has accessed the internet at least once. Here are some of the study’s main findings:

• Smartphones. Thanks to the use of their mobile phones, lower-income populations saw a dramatic jump in internet use—from 60 to 76 percent (socio-economic class C) and from 23 to 40 percent (class D/E). Of the entire population connected to the internet, 97 percent access the web on their phones.
• Income. Differences in internet access reflect Brazil’s overall social inequality levels. The probability of someone being completely offline is inversely proportional to wealth. Among rich families, only 7 percent have never connected to the internet. That rate goes up to 35 percent for poorer households.
• E-commerce. Fewer Brazilians are buying products online—the rate went down from 38 to 34 percent between 2016 and 2018. The main reasons for that is a preference for making in-person purchases. Meanwhile, two-thirds of people don’t trust the quality of the product they will receive and/or are worried about privacy or security issues....