A survey conducted by opinion polling and consulting firm Gallup on home Internet access in 148 countries worldwide shows that 45% of respondents in Lebanon said that they have Internet access at home, compared to 32% of participants worldwide who reported having home Internet access.

The share of Lebanese who have access to the Internet at home was the 54th highest worldwide, higher than the share of respondents who have home Internet access in Greece (44%), Moldova (42%) and Jamaica (41%), and lower than that in Trinidad & Tobago (46%) and Chile and Venezuela (48%, each).

It was also the seventh highest percentage among 19 Arab countries included in the survey, but lower than that in the UAE (85%), Bahrain (84%), Kuwait (83%), Qatar with 77%, and Saudi Arabia and Oman with 74% each. Lebanon was among 100 countries globally where less than half of the population has Internet access at home.

In parallel, the survey showed that 55% of survey participants in Lebanon indicated that they do not have Internet access at home, compared to around 68% of respondents worldwide who reported that they do not have home Internet access.

The percentage of Lebanese who said that they lack home Internet access was the 94th highest worldwide, and was similar to the share of survey participants in Greece. It was also higher than the share of respondents who do not have home Internet access in Trinidad &Tobago (54%), and Chile and Venezuela (52% each), and lower than that in Moldova, Jamaica and Ukraine with 58% each.

It was also the 13th highest among Arab states. The survey's results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults per country, aged 15 and older, conducted in 148 countries and territories in 2011. The survey in Lebanon was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,003 adults.

Source : ‘Lebanon This Week’, the economic publication of the Byblos Bank Group