A quarter of European Union companies employing at least 10 persons use cloud computing services, while Croatia is above the EU average, with 31 percent of its businesses using these services, showed a survey by EU statistics bureau, Eurostat, on the use of information and communication technologies in enterprises in 2018.

Could computing usage grew rapidly over the last few years – in 2014 it stood at 19 percent, and in 2016 at 21 percent, Eurostat said.

Large enterprises use cloud computing much more (56 percent of enterprises employing 250 persons or more) than small ones (23 percent of enterprises employing 10 to 49 persons).

Over the last four years, the highest increase in cloud computing usage was observed in large enterprises (+21 percent), compared with a 12 percent increase in medium sized enterprises and a 6 percent increase in small enterprises.

Croatia above EU average

The survey revealed significant differences across countries in regards to cloud computing usage. Over half of enterprises in Finland (65 percent), Sweden (57 percent) and Denmark (56 percent) used cloud computing.

At the opposite end of the scale, cloud computing services were used by 10 percent or fewer enterprises in Bulgaria (8 percent) and Romania (10 percent).

Croatia was above the EU average, with 31 enterprises employing more than 10 people using cloud computing services.

Cloud computing services mostly used for e-mail

In 2018, enterprises used cloud computing mostly for e-mail (69 percent of enterprises that used cloud computing), closely followed by the storage of files in electronic form in a cloud (68 percent).

Enterprises less frequently purchased computing power to run the enterprise’s own software (23 percent), or used CRM software applications over the cloud for managing information about customers (29 percent).

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