Some 85 per cent of Irish households now have internet access, with new figures showing that fixed broadband is still the most popular way to get online.
New figures compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for Eurostat show however that 38 per cent of homes now access the internet through a mobile broadband connection.
The percentage of households online has jumped from 67 per cent in 2009 to 82 per cent last year and 85 per cent this year. Some 77 per cent of households still use fixed broadband services to access the internet currently.
The figures show using email, social networking and banking are the most common activities carried out online while the most popular types of goods and services purchased by Irish internet users include clothes or sports goods, travel, tickets and holiday accommodation.
Over 40 per cent of individuals who have bought products or services via the internet in the last three months said they had made between one and two purchases, a figure likely to jump over the holiday season.
According to the study, some 80 per cent of individuals said they used the internet in the last three months with 90 per cent of those in the 16-29 age category claiming to go online every day, as against just 29 per cent of those aged between 60 and 74 years.
The data show 44 per cent of Irish internet users use cloud computing services to store files such as music, documents and photos, up 9 percentage points compared to 2014.
Use of online storage services was particularly popular among younger users with 56 per cent of individuals in the16-29 age category saying they used online storage space to save files to, compared to 22 per cent of those aged between 60 and 74 years.
