May 31st, 2021 - The digital market in Croatia is not fully mature, and Croatia belongs to a set of countries that could be termed "lagging fast movers," the World Bank says in a final report on the subject, as the fast internet is too expensive for Croatian Wages.
In analyzing the ICT sector, the World Bank focused on the internet (fixed and mobile), telephony (fixed and mobile), and pay TV markets.
The World Bank explains Croatia's insufficient maturity because most revenues still come from telephony, not internet services.
In terms of the Digital Economy and Society Index, Croatia is below the EU average in terms of digital performance and service usage, but their rate of improvement is above it.
As for fixed internet, Croatia has the opportunity to additionally accelerate its performance because the fixed broadband coverage is better than in comparable countries, but that is not reflected in usage.
Croatia is markedly below average in actual access despite coverage in terms of fast service (at least 30 Mbps download). As for ultrafast fixed internet (100 Mbps), Croatia is below average in terms of coverage and service usage.
Although Croatia has made progress in recent years regarding the take-up of fast fixed broadband service, "urban take-up is still more than twice that of rural take-up."
The report also says that "Croatia performs particularly badly with respect to rural penetration in comparison to other EU countries and remains far from the 100 percent EU household take-up target for 2020."
Affordability is one reason for Croatia’s underperformance regarding fixed broadband take-up and overall digital market assessment. The World Bank says that in terms of affordability, Croatia is quite below most EU countries.
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