The bar chart depicts the percentage of households in a country that owned eight different items between 2001 and 2008.
Overall, it is evident that the proportion of households using telephone witnessed a moderate decline, which contrasted sharply to the upward trend observed in the other seven items.
In 2001, telephone ranked the most popular household item at about 95%, followed by microwave, CD player and clothes dryer at 80%, 70% and 60% respectively. The other four goods had much lower figures. Around 35% of households had home computer, while mobile phone and dishwasher were used in around 25% and 22% of households. In contrast, internet was temporarily the least common item, being available in only 10% of households.
In 2008, although the rates of households using telephone slightly decreased compared to microwave and CD players that modestly increased, all figures ended at 90%, making these three the most widely-used items. Clothes dryer’s usage rate also increased slightly to 70%. Meanwhile the four goods that initially had much lower figures all exhibited marked rises, which mobile phone, home computer and internet’s figures soared to 80%, 65% and 60% respectively. Dishwasher, despite a climb to nearly 40%, overtook internet to be the least commonly used item.