Croatia
Croatia's Contactless Payments Trending for a New Digital Age
Population
Croatia had an estimated population of 4,105,267 as of the middle of 2020, according to UN data. Based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest UN data, Croatia had a population of 4,088,885 as of February 22, 2021, with only 57.7% living in urban areas, mainly Zagreb. The median age of the population is 44.3 years. Croatia had approximately 3.27 million active internet users as of January 2021, according to Data Reportal.
E-commerce
The relatively low internet, banking, and smartphone penetration rate means Croatia still faces quite high challenges to establish an e-commerce market. The average annual revenue per paying user in Croatia is still unknown, but the estimated value is $536 million. Most cross-border e-commerce purchases by Croatian shoppers are of products from China, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Payment preferences
Before the pandemic, most Croatiaian shoppers prefer to pay with bank transfers, followed by cash-on-delivery, credit cards, and other payment methods. For cashless payments, the three big players are still unknown.
Economy
According to IMF data, Croatia had a gross domestic product of $60.42 billion in 2019, which declined to $56.77 billion in 2020 due to the pandemic. As the economy continues to recover, Croatia's GDP is expected to expand to about $65.84 billion in 2021.
Internet & mobile phone trends
According to Statista, the 27.6% majority of internet users in the country were aged 25 to 34 years old as of 2020. According to Datareportal, there were 3.27 million internet users in January 2021, which had increased by about 145 thousand (+4.6%) from 2020, with an internet penetration rate of 80% in January 2021. Meanwhile, about 57% of the population had smartphones in 2016, which is projected to rise up to 67% in 2022, implying a vast growing market.
Banking
According to Datareportal, 72.97% of Croatians had bank accounts in 2019, but only 35.5% of them were credit card holders.