The coverage of the 2018 Survey on Information Technology Usage in Businesses includes Gaming Sector; Hotels and Similar Establishments; Travel Agencies; Advertising and Conference & Exhibition Organising Services; Transport, Storage and Communications Sector; Wholesale and Retail Trade; Restaurants and Similar Establishments; Property Management, Security and Cleaning Services; Construction Sector; and Industrial Sector. Number of operating establishments/enterprises in the surveyed industries totalled 23,232, with a computer usage rate of 61.9%, an increase of 10.9 percentage points compared to the previous survey results in 2012. In view of the rising penetration of the Internet, the proportion of establishments/enterprises accessing the Internet via computers/mobile phones stood at 64.8% in 2018, of which those using computers to access the Internet grew by 16.5 percentage points to 58.6% compared to 2012. Among the persons engaged, 45.0% of them used computers and those accessed the Internet via computers/mobile phones took up 42.5%.

Regarding the use of computers by industry, the Gaming Sector (100.0%), Travel Agencies (97.3%) and Advertising and Conference & Exhibition Services (90.1%) had a usage rate of over 90%. As the use of computers became more popular in Restaurants and Similar Establishments, the computer usage rate in this industry surged by 21.8 percentage points over the past six years to 54.5%; besides, the computer usage rates for Wholesale and Retail Trade (58.0%) and the Industrial Sector (67.3%) went up by 11.3 percentage points and 9.5 percentage points respectively. As regards persons engaged, the proportions of those using computers in Advertising and Conference & Exhibition Organising Services (71.4%), the Gaming Sector (68.8%) as well as Hotels and Similar Establishments (60.7%) exceeded 60%.

Attributable to the widespread use of the Internet in businesses, the proportions of establishments/enterprises accessing the Internet via computers/mobile phones for the Gaming Sector, Travel Agencies, Hotels and Similar Establishments, Advertising and Conference & Exhibition Services reached 100.0%, 96.8%, 94.8% and 90.1% respectively in 2018. The shares of establishments/enterprises using computers to access the Internet for most of the industries registered increases compared to 2012, with the proportions for Restaurants and Similar Establishments (43.7%), Wholesale and Retail Trade (55.5%) and the Industrial Sector (66.7%) soaring by 24.6 percentage points, 17.8 percentage points and 14.2 percentage points respectively. Establishments/enterprises that accessed the Internet for sending and receiving email accounted for 49.4% of the total, and those accessing the Internet for searching information and purchasing took up 44.0% and 33.7% respectively. Analysed by industry, gaming enterprises had the most extensive use of the Internet for a variety of purposes such as publicity and promotion, recruitment, searching for information as well as sending and receiving email. Hotels and Similar Establishments accessed the Internet mostly for providing customer services, whereas Travel Agencies, Advertising and Conference & Exhibition Organising Services, Construction Sector, the Industrial Sector and other industries accessed the Internet primarily for sending and receiving email as well as searching for information.

The proportion of establishments/enterprises that had web pages/websites was still relatively low in 2018, at only 12.2%. Apart from the Gaming Sector (90.0%) and Hotels and Similar Establishments (65.5%), the proportions of establishments/enterprises having their own web pages/websites in most of the industries were comparatively small; the corresponding shares for Property Management, Security and Cleaning Services (9.9%), Wholesale and Retail Trade (9.7%) and Construction Sector (9.2%) were less than 10%.