Eurostat: 50% of EU companies will use remote meetings in 2022

Internet connectivity is essential for most businesses to operate and conduct activities online.

In the EU, almost all businesses (94%) have broadband internet access. This applies regardless of the size of the business, as 94% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 99% of large businesses use broadband by 2022.

More than half of EU businesses use social media and half conduct online meetings

In 2021, 59% of businesses in the EU used social media, compared to 37% in 2015.

Differences also emerged based on business size, with large businesses (83%) more likely to use social media than SMEs (58%).

The most popular social media for businesses are:

• Social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn (56% of businesses)
• Multimedia content sharing sites, such as YouTube and Instagram (28%)
• Corporate blog (11%)
• Knowledge sharing tools based on Wikipedia (6%)

In 2022, 50% of EU companies conducted remote meetings through online platforms such as Skype, Zoom, MS Teams and WebEx.

In terms of company size, online meetings are very popular among large enterprises (93%), but less common among small and medium-sized enterprises (49%).

In 2022, Sweden and Finland had the highest proportion of companies holding online meetings (both 79%), followed by Denmark (78%) and Malta (68%).

To enable employees to work remotely, companies can give them remote access to different types of resources. In 2022, in the EU:

• 78% of companies allow employees to access the company's email system remotely;
• 65% of companies provide remote access to corporate documents;
• 62% provide remote access to company business applications or software.

E-commerce

E-commerce offers businesses the possibility to sell goods or services to online customers via the Internet, thereby supplementing or replacing traditional sales channels such as in-store sales.

In 2022, 23% of EU businesses used e-commerce to sell their products and services in the previous year, compared to 16% in 2012.

19% of EU businesses use a website or app to sell goods or services. 17% sell goods and services online through their own website or app; 9% use an e-commerce marketplace.

Online sales account for 18% of EU business turnover

Looking at turnover generated from online sales, EU companies reported online sales accounting for 18% of their total turnover in 2022, up from 14% in 2012. This proportion was higher for large companies (23%) than for SMEs (11%).

ICT Security

22% of EU companies experienced an ICT security incident in 2022. The highest percentage of companies reporting ICT security incidents was in Finland (44%), followed by the Netherlands and Poland (both 30%), while the lowest percentages were in Bulgaria (11%), Portugal and Slovakia (both 12%).

92% of EU companies use at least one ICT security measure in 2022. Across EU countries, this percentage ranges from 75% in Greece and 79% in Hungary to 98% in Denmark and Finland.

The most commonly used measures are:

• Strong password authentication (82%)
• Backing up data to a separate location or cloud (78%)
• Network access control (65%).

58% of EU companies inform employees of their ICT security obligations

Some 58% of EU companies make their employees aware of their obligations on ICT security-related issues. To achieve this, 42% of companies provide voluntary ICT security training, 21% conduct mandatory ICT security training, and 32% include ICT security obligations in employee contracts.