The International Telecommunications Union new ICT Development Index compares developments in information and communication technologies in 154 countries over a five-year period from 2002 to 2007. Their ICT Development Index combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool
Sweden tops their new ICT Development Index (IDI), followed by the Republic of Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway. Countries with low ICT levels (and hence low Index ranks) are primarily from the developing world.
Six in ten people (60%) world-wide now have cell phone subscriptions. That’s up from just under 15% in 2002. Two thirds of the world’s cell phone subscriptions are in developing nations, with the highest growth rate in Africa where a quarter of the population now has a mobile, the ITU said on Friday.
While just 1 in 50 Africans had a mobile in the year 2000, now 28 percent have a cellular subscription, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a U.N. agency.
The world has more than three times more mobile cellular subscriptions than fixed telephone lines, and in some countries in Asia and Europe people have more than one contract each, pushing the mobile access rate above 100 percent.
In its Measuring the Information Society report, the ITU said the Internet is far less accessible in poorer parts of the world, for instance in Africa where just 5 percent of the population now uses the Internet.
But dramatic mobile cellular growth in developing countries, including Pakistan (ranked 127th), Saudi Arabia (55th), China (73rd), and Vietnam (92nd), helped bolster emerging economies since the last index was compiled, in 2002, the ITU said.
Companies that have invested heavily in emerging markets include India’s Bharti Airtel, Norway’s Telenor, South Africa’s MTN and Egypt’s Orascom Telecom.
Data for over 200 economies are available on a CD through the ITU.
