Clothes and sports goods remained the most popular items purchased by Maltese internet shoppers in 2017, followed by holiday and travel services. However, the largest increase in online sales was registered in household goods, films and music.

Latest trends on the ICT usage by households published by the National Statistics Office show that in 2017 the number of internet users who made online purchases totalled 175,200. From a wider perspective, this figure represents nearly two-thirds of all internet users in Malta at 64.5 per cent, up by 1.8 percentage points over 2016.

As in the previous year, clothes and sports goods were the most popular items with 129,239 separate purchases, which makes up to almost three quarters of all those who made online acquisitions. This number represents a 1.4 percentage point rise on 2016.

Next in line were travel-related services, with holiday accommodation bookings accounting for 69,075 users, which represented a rise of seven percentage points.

The least popular items were food and groceries

Other travel arrangements ranked third with a total of 77,486 users.

A further analysis of the data reveals that the highest gains in online purchases were made in the household goods and films and music categories.

Last year 59,909 users, or a third of those who made online purchases, bought household goods from online platforms. Compared to 2016, this represented an increase of more than 20,000 users.

As for films and music the online acquisitions nearly doubled and reached 43,391, meaning that one in every four users made such a purchase.

The least popular items among online shoppers were food and groceries. Furthermore, none of those interviewed said they had bought medicinal items online.

From the NSO news release, it also transpired that last year 80.1 per cent of the population were regular internet users, up from 77.3 per cent in 2016.

However, the demographic distribution of the users varied. While all of those in the 16 to 24 age bracket were regular users, for those between 65 and 74 years, the rate was the lowest at 40.6 per cent.

Results also showed that internet was mostly used to send and receive e-mails and use social media, followed by access to information such as news portals.

Internet access through mobile devices also increased, with 83.4 per cent using this medium.