KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 —  Households having access to the Internet have increased by 15.6 percentage points to 85.7 per cent in 2017 as compared to 70.1 per cent in 2015.

In a statement here today, the Statistics Department said, households with computer and mobile phone access rose to 74.1 per cent and 98.1 per cent respectively compared to 67.6 per cent and 97.9 per cent in 2015.

Chief Statistician Malaysia, Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin, said individuals using Internet aged 15 years and above in Malaysia rose by nine percentage points to 80.1 per cent in 2017 from 71.1 per cent in 2015.

"Among the popular Internet activities carried out by the Internet users were participating in social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others (86.3 per cent); downloading images, films, video or music; playing or downloading games (81.2 per cent); getting information about goods and services (80.4 per cent); and, downloading software or applications (74.5 per cent).

"Other activities carried out by Internet users were Internet banking (37.6 per cent), and purchasing or ordering goods or services (23.2 per cent),” he said.

The percentage of individuals using computer also increased to 69.8 per cent in 2017 from 68.7 per cent in 2015, while the percentage of individuals using mobile phone rose by 0.2 percentage point in 2017 to 97.7 per cent from 97.5 per cent in 2015. — Bernama