CANBERRA, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Australia's love affair with the internet shows no sign of cooling, with the latest national statistics revealing that the volume of data downloads increased by almost 40 percent in the 12 months to December 2017.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released figures on Tuesday which showed internet activity across Australia in 2017.
It said the total volume of data downloaded in the three months until 31 December 2017 was 3.6 million Terabytes (or 3.6 Exabytes).
This was a 19.7-percent increase in data downloads when compared to the three months ended 30 June 2017 - and a 38.6 percent increase in the 12 months until December 2017.
Data downloaded via fixed line broadband accounted for 97 percent of all internet downloads in the three months ended 31 December 2017. Although coming from a relatively small base, the use of wireless for data downloads doubled in the same period.
For households with children aged under 15 years, 97 percent had access to the internet compared with 82 percent of households without children under 15.
Households located in major cities were more likely to have internet access at home (88 percent ) than those in remote or very remote parts of Australia (77 percent).
In 2016-17, people aged 15 to 17 years were the highest proportion of internet users (98 percent) compared with the older age group (65 years and over) which had the lowest proportion of internet users (55 percent).
The three most popular online activities were entertainment, social networking and banking (all 80 percent).
A notable figure in the latest ABS report was the growth in fibre connections in the last six months of 2017 - up by 38.7 percent - as the number of fibre connections reached nearly three million subscribers.
The ABS data also revealed the number of mobile phone subscribers in Australia (26.7 million) was actually greater than the country's population (24.7 million).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the volume of data downloaded via mobile handsets for the year ended Dec. 31, 2017 increased by 39.1 percent.
