Greece's digitization in 5 numbers
A quick look into the country's recent digital leap
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👩🏻💻 Greece's digitization in 5 numbers
How does Greece’s digital landscape look like entering 2025?
Better than you might think.
Here are the 5 most interesting numbers to have in mind for your next dinner party.
9 in 10 Greek households have internet access at home
Internet penetration has improved consistently in Greece over the past decade.
In 2014, about 66% of Greeks had access to the internet a home. That number is almost 87% in 2024, meaning that 9 to 10 households in Greece are plugged in online.
65% of Greeks bought something online last year
I’ve been amazed by the number of e-shop businesses popping up in Greece since COVID started. This is not a coincidence. Internet purchases are soaring.
In 2020, only 38% of individuals in Greece had bought something online in the last 3 months, while 46% had bought something online over the last year.
In 2024, these numbers had grown to 54% and 65% respectively.
Even more notably, the number of people who had never made an online purchase dropped from 31% to 19% over the same period.
More than 1 in 2 Greeks use e-banking
Greeks have historically been laggards in terms of e-banking usage. No more!
In 2013, only 11% of Greeks used internet banking, far below the EU average of 40%.
In 2024, 54% of Greeks use internet banking, catching up to the EU average of 67%.
The gap is closing fast, as Greeks are now becoming much more comfortable with electronic wallets and banking apps.
It’s not a coincidence that Revolut was the financial app with the most downloads in Greece during 2024. Unless Greek banks take their customer (digital) needs seriously, neobanks are going to eat them up.
1.4+ billion digital transactions via gov.gr
When gov.gr launched its first serious set of online services during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, few of us realized its transformative potential for Greek society.
Four years later, the relationship between citizens and state has been redefined.
From less than 9 million in 2018, gov.gr completed more than 1.4 billion digital transactions in 2023 (166x higher), a number expected to grow even more last year.
Deservingly, gov.gr has been rated at the very top of customer experience offerings in Greece, topping all other public services and coming second in a list of 74 companies.
Fun fact: gov.gr reached a total of 2025 digital services offered at the start of 2025.
Taxi revenues up 177% after POS becomes mandatory
Until early last year, Greek taxi drivers were not required to accept card payments.
Often, taxis would find ingenious excuses as to why their card machine was not working and even reject outright passengers who did not want to pay in cash.
In early 2024, Point of Sale (POS) systems became mandatory for local taxis.
Guess what happened next?
Declared revenues of Greek taxis are up 177% in just the first 8 months of 2024, from €18M last year to €50M this year.
And this is only the beginning…
🏭 Economy & Business
Greece has received €18 billion in EU Recovery Fund since 2021
Industrial production index marks 4.9% YoY rise in Nov 2024
BoG sees decrease in rate of increase of property prices
Uniform profile for each taxpayer prepared by AADE
Short term rentals to receive new legal framework
Tourism breaks all records in 2024
🤖 Tech & Startups
Greek VCs seem optimistic about the year ahead
Open Data Maturity Report for 2024 shows Greece still a laggard
Contactless payments now available in Athens public transport
Progressive Robotics raised a €1.55M seed round from Marathon
Coinbux raised €320k from Genesis Ventures and angels
gov.gr successfully mitigates DDoS attack from foreign hackers
🙌 Celebrating Greek wins
Greece wins EU block against “Turkagean” trademark registration
Trikala attract back people fed up with large city life
Kalavryta warmly embrace refugee from the Gambia
📌 Spotlight: Life satisfaction
Metrics of (self-reported) life satisfaction in Greece are still trailing the EU average.
And yet, despite the doom-and-gloom-ers, overall life satisfaction in Greece has been consistently improving over the last decade, coming closer to our European peers.
Let’s hope this trend continues.
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Until next time!
Like this kind of growth summarization post. Keep it up.
Apart from digital transformation and automating workflows, it is interesting what happens as more people get online. Apart from posting not so relevant photos on Instagram, users start to engage with other platforms and tools. For example, some discover Reddit and participate actively in the communities, providing insights as well as asking questions regarding their needs. On the other side, startups leverage those pain points, information and increased internet activity so that they build a platform that can be sustained online and not only used by a few evangelists. Spending more on ads and so on, so that it becomes a circle