Top tech nations revealed

It's all change at the top

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in IT Director, 3rd November 2004 09:30 GMT

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Denmark is the world's most tech-savvy nation, deposing Sweden from the top spot in IDC's Information Society Index.

The ISI looks at four factors to judge a country's ability to access and use information technology. It considers the number of PCs, IT spending as a percentage of GDP and software spending. It looks at the percentage of people with internet access. The survey also looks at telecoms infrastructure, broadband provision and mobile services. Finally the ISI looks at social factors such as access to education, civil liberties and government corruption.

Based on 2003 data 67 per cent of Danes have access to the internet, 84 per cent of them accessing it from home. Twenty two per cent of households have broadband connections and 59 per cent of people have mobile phones. In contrast, the US scores lower for mobile use but has the highest number of homes with PCs and highest software spending.

Sweden took second place, the US took third and Switzerland was in fourth. Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, Korea, Norway and the UK made up the rest of the top ten. Report author and senior IDC analyst David Emberley noted that civil liberties and education usually determined a nation's level of technology use, but wireless technology is an exception. This is one area in which consumer adoption has been strong "even in some of those countries with lower overall scores for social freedoms," he said.

Korea came in eighth and the UK came in 10th place. Indonesia, India, Turkey and Vietnam were the lowest ranking of the 53 countries considered. But the report noted that IDC only looks at countries where it has some local presence; so in effect the countries represent the world's 53 largest IT markets.

Press release here and rather funky interactive map thingy is here ®