It took a while for smartphones to take hold in Bulgaria. The country certainly wasn’t at the forefront of smartphone adoption and it was several years before it hit a double-digit percentage in relation to the overall penetration rate.

But, as with most things, it’s not where you start that counts but where you finish. Today, Bulgaria is one of Europe’s leading smartphone-integrated countries, with more and more Bulgarians relying on their devices for everyday life. Here, we’ll take a closer look at smartphones in Bulgaria and make a prediction about what the future may hold.

Increasing Use

Bulgaria is increasingly online. Indeed, between 2020 and 2021, the percentage of internet users jumped by more than 5%, with an additional 242,000 people gaining access to the web, most often via smartphone use. The majority of this growth was experienced in the more rural parts of the country, where, historically, data signal has been notoriously difficult to come by. The government’s investment has meant that country-dwellers have more options than ever before to get online via mobile data and standard broadband connections.

Social Media

The biggest growth factor has been social media. Of the 6.9 million people that live in Bulgaria, more than 4.3 million of them have at least one social media channel. Reports suggest that the availability of social media is one of the biggest factors that motivates people to get connected; in fact, the number of people using social media increased nearly precisely in line with the number of new internet users. Two hundred forty-two thousand people joined the web between 2020 and 2021; in the same period, 210 thousand people joined social media.

Moving Online

The increasing integration of smartphones in Bulgaria is due, like in other parts of the world, to the growing availability of historically offline activities. The handy little device makes it possible to do a wide range of things with just a few clicks of a button. For instance, consumers can shop online rather than heading to their city centre, play online poker on social platforms rather than in person at the casino, or quickly access the information they need, no matter where they are.

Photo

Public Services

Bulgarians aren’t only using their devices for entertainment or educational purposes. They’re also using them to take care of day-to-day business. A significant number of Bulgarians use their devices for online banking, for instance. And the integration of smartphones became even more pronounced with the announcement that citizens can access more than 190 public and administrative services via their devices.

This initiative, led by Evrotrust and Borika, two big-name players in the Bulgarian tech scene, allows citizens to securely log in to government-based platforms and access a wide range of services.

The Future

If you take a look at the history of smartphone ownership in Bulgaria, you’ll see a pretty clear pattern: it’s increasing all the time. Eight years ago, only around 30% of the population had a smartphone. Today, it stands at more than 62%. The figure has been increasing steadily — and sometimes rapidly — over the years. It’s not hard to imagine that, within five years, more than 80% of the population will own and use a smartphone. When that happens, we can expect that the smartphone will play an even more prominent role in society, most notably in relation to payments and accessing services.

In Conclusion

As we said at the beginning of this article, Bulgaria was relatively slow to integrate smartphones. But now that they’ve got going, they show no signs of slowing down. With Sofia becoming a tech capital, Bulgarians can look forward to new and innovative smartphone services coming their way.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!