YEREVAN. – In 2015, the Internet usage growth has slowed dramatically in Armenia.

Media expert Samvel Martirosyan stated the abovementioned at a press conference on Wednesday.

“[But] this has a logical explanation, since in the previous years, Armenia was filling the gap that was formed during the time of the monopoly of [the] ArmenTel [company],” he added. “From 2008 to 2010, Armenia was actually ‘offline;’ the number of [Internet] users was very small. [But] now, we [in Armenia] have come to the phase that nearly half the population uses the Internet. This is a large indicator for Armenia; also in the CIS [i.e. the Commonwealth of Independent States]. But we [still] are lagging behind in international indicators, since there are countries where the [Internet] use indicator has reached 80 to 90 percent.”

Martirosyan also noted that, by and large, Internet in Armenia continues to be a means for contact and dissemination of information, and it is much less used as an economic and educational domain.