Latvian Enterprises Lag Behind Neighbors in Cloud Services Usage 0 25

According to a Eurostat report, the share of Latvian enterprises acquiring cloud computing services has increased by nine percentage points over the past two years. In 2023, about 35% of enterprises utilized this opportunity, while in 2025 it is expected to rise to 44%.

However, in a regional context, Latvia remains among the laggards. In Lithuania, paid cloud services were used by 58% of enterprises last year, and in Estonia, even 60%. It should be noted that Lithuania has demonstrated the fastest growth in cloud services usage in business activities in the entire EU over the past two years, increasing by 19.7%.

"Latvian enterprises have a long and difficult road ahead to reach at least the EU average in cloud services usage. Currently, we rank only 20th among all participating countries and lag behind the average by more than 8 percentage points. However, the experience of the accounting sector shows that Latvian enterprises are capable of reorienting and implementing changes in a relatively short period if they see real benefits.

For example, the accounting program Jumis in cloud service format was used by only about 3% of all our clients in 2016. Before the pandemic, the share of users increased to 33%, but with the advent of remote work, a real boom in digitalization began. By the end of 2023, 93% of clients were using Jumis in the form of a cloud service, and today almost everyone does," said Viesturs Slaidins, the head of Jumis Pro, introducing the growth dynamics.

In competition with other participating countries, it will be necessary to "run" twice as fast as competitors, as other countries are also not idle. Over two years, the average usage rate of paid cloud services in the block has increased by an average of 7.4%, which is only slightly less than in Latvia. It has now reached 52.7% and marks a significant breakthrough compared to what it was 10 years ago. In 2014, such services were used by only just under 18% of enterprises in Europe.

Across Europe, enterprises most often use cloud services to support everyday core processes and optimize costs, avoiding the creation of expensive IT infrastructure. Among the most popular services, the following dominate: email systems, used by 85.2% of all cloud service subscribers; office software, such as word processors and spreadsheets (71.7%); and cloud file storage (71.5%).

Increasing digital intensity and implementing cloud computing is a critically important element in enhancing the competitiveness of Latvian enterprises, especially in the small and medium-sized business sector, to achieve the EU's digital decade goals.