Food deliveries by courier, clothes, consumer electronics and household appliances topped online shopping in Malta last year.  

Data published by the National Statistics Office shows that over a three-month period 164,715 internet users ordered deliveries from restaurants, fast-food chains or catering services. A deeper analysis of the result shows that the total was roughly split in equal amount between males and females.

Clothes ranked as the second most popular items for online purchases with 157,944 user. However, this time around females were predominantly the ones who sought this type of online transaction with 58% of the total share.

Food, albeit from supermarkets and meal-kit providers ranked third with 97,475 users of whom the majority (52,403) were females.

As expected, consumer electronics and household appliances remained male-dominated territory. Out of a total of 95,220 users, 57,766 were carried out by males which is equivalent to 61%.

On the other hand, cosmetics were overwhelmingly acquire by females who comprised 70% of the 57,297 users.

The least popular category of online shopping items was that which comprised bicycles, mopeds, cars or vehicle parts with 24,725 users which were almost exclusively males.  The result was so skewed that no female users were list as their number was so low that it was considered as unreliable.

Apart from online purchases the NSO also delved into the most popular type of subscriptions acquired. Streaming services for films and series’ such as Netflix or Amazon Prime were the most popular with 125,211 users.

Mobile phone subscriptions were the second most popular with 80,741 users followed by music streaming suck as Spotify which totalled 76,428, users.

The rest of the subscription services in order of popularity were computer software, online games, electronic books, newspapers and magazines, utility service applications and others (learning languages, travelling and weather).

Compared to a similar survey carried out in 2021, the most recent results follow identical trends in terms of user preferences. However, there is a significant increase in the overall number of users making online purchases and subscriptions.

From a wider perspective, the 2023 ICT survey shows that nearly all individuals aged 16 to 34 used the internet. In contrast, individuals aged 65 to 74 recorded the lowest internet usage levels, with only 68.7%. Notwithstanding this, internet usage in Malta exceeded the EU-27 average by 0.7 percentage points.