E-commerce sales increased in Latvia last year

62.6 % of enterprises had their own website, of which 94.1 % were large enterprises, 81 % medium-sized enterprises and 58.4 % small enterprises.

One of indicators characterizing development of e-commerce is share of enterprises selling goods or services over the Internet or in other computer networks. In 2019, compared to 2018, this indicator increased by 1.7 percentage points, reaching 15.5 %.

The largest growth was in group of large enterprises – by 5.4 percentage points, reaching 40.5 %. In group of medium-sized and small enterprises goods or services were sold over the Internet by 20.8 % of medium-sized and 13.7 % of small enterprises (increase of 4.0 and 1.1 percentage point, respectively).

 

At the beginning of the year, before the emergency situation was declared in the country due to COVID-19, 74.4 % of enterprises ensured all or part of employees with portable devices for mobile internet use, and that is 12.8 percentage points more than in 2019. 

In the group of small enterprises, compared to 2019, this indicator rose by 13.6 percentage points, but in the group of medium-sized and large enterprises – by 9.7 and 3.4 percentage points, respectively. For work Internet was used by 44.4 % of all employees of enterprises, but for 24.1 % of employees enterprises ensured portable devices for mobile internet use.

20 % of enterprises employ their own ICT specialists, of which 74.4 % large enterprises, 35.5 % medium-sized enterprises and 15.2 % small enterprises. In 2019, compared to the previous year, share of enterprises outsourcing ICT service providers has increased, and in total their number comprised 83.8 % of all enterprises. The largest growth was in group of small enterprises by 9.3 percentage points. In large enterprises this indicator rose by 7.7 percentage points, but in medium-sized – reduced by 0.5 percentage points.

In 2020, 21.3 % of enterprises used paid cloud computing services, and in two years this indicator has risen by 6.8 percentage points, of which in medium-sized enterprises – by 9 percentage points, in large enterprises – by 8.4 %, but in small – by 6.2 percentage points. Use of almost all kinds of paid cloud computing services increased, however, the largest growth (of 21.1 percentage point) was in use of file storage services.

In 2020, 24.3 % of all enterprises used Internet of Things or interchangeably connected devices or systems collecting or exchanging data, and which can be monitored or remotely controlled using the Internet. Internet of Things was used by every second (52.6 %) of large enterprises, as well as by 38.1 % of medium-sized and 20.7 % of small enterprises. Mostly (47.3 % of enterprises) Internet of Things was used in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.

Use of Internet of Things in enterprises in 2020
(% of all enterprises)