My second post on this blog entitled Canada in the Worldwide Top 3 for Internet Penetration Rate, which is one of the most viewed, was about a worldwide ranking based on one of the most important macroeconomic indicators of innovation: “the Internet penetration rate”. This post did not generated lots of comments at the time, but many people find it useful to cite for the first steps of a presentation. However, with time, new data have become available and the shape of the ranking has changed. Using data from The Internet World Stats database, this post is an update of the Top 30 countries with the highest Internet penetration rate for nations with more than a million individuals, so here is the new Top 30 compared to the previous one of April 2009:
| Jan. 2010 | Jan. 2010 | April 2009 | April 2009 | |
| Countries | Position | Rate | Position | Rate |
| Norway | 1 | 90.9% | 2 | 87.7% |
| Sweden | 2 | 89.2% | 6 | 77.4% |
| Netherlands | 3 | 85.6% | 1 | 90.1% |
| Denmark | 4 | 84.2% | 14 | 68.6% |
| Finland | 5 | 83.5% | 15 | 68.6% |
| Australia | 6 | 80.1% | 5 | 79.4% |
| New Zealand | 7 | 79.7% | 4 | 80.5% |
| South Korea | 8 | 77.3% | 11 | 70.7% |
| United Kingdom | 9 | 76.4% | 16 | 68.6% |
| Japan | 10 | 75.5% | 7 | 73.8% |
| Switzerland | 11 | 75.5% | 13 | 69.0% |
| Canada | 12 | 74.9% | 3 | 84.3% |
| United States | 13 | 74.1% | 10 | 72.3% |
| Israel | 14 | 72.8% | 9 | 72.8% |
| Singapore | 15 | 72.4% | 25 | 58.6% |
| Austria | 16 | 72.3% | 27 | 56.7% |
| Spain | 17 | 71.8% | 20 | 63.3% |
| Belgium | 18 | 70.0% | – | – |
| France | 19 | 69.3% | 26 | 58.1% |
| Hong Kong | 20 | 69.2% | 12 | 69.5% |
| Estonia | 21 | 68.3% | 23 | 58.7% |
| Ireland | 22 | 67.3% | – | – |
| Germany | 23 | 65.9% | 19 | 63.8% |
| Taiwan | 24 | 65.9% | 17 | 67.2% |
| Malaysia | 25 | 65.7% | 24 | 59.0% |
| Slovakia | 26 | 65.3% | – | – |
| Slovenia | 27 | 64.8% | 18 | 64.8% |
| Latvia | 28 | 61.4% | – | – |
| United Arab Emirates | 29 | 60.9% | – | – |
| Hungary | 30 | 59.3% | – | – |
| Italy | – | 51.7% | 22 | 59.7% |
| Portugal | – | 41.8% | 8 | 72.9% |
| Bulgaria | – | 36.7% | 28 | 55.1% |
| Romania | – | 33.4% | 29 | 53.9% |
| Belarus | – | 32.2% | 21 | 61.9% |
| Jamaica | – | ND | 30 | 53.5% |
The changes in the ranking are mainly due to two factors: (1) changes in the sources used by The Internet Worlwide Stats Database, and (2) natural growth. The new ranking includes all members of Scandinavia in the new top 5: Norway (ranked 1st, 90.9%), Sweden (ranked 2nd, 89.2%), Denmark (ranked 3rd, 84.2%) and Finland (ranked 5th, 83.5%). In terms of changes, 6 of the previous nations in the Top 10 are still in the Top10 (Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand & Japan).
Conclusion
In conclusion, Scandinavia and Oceania are still leaders in term of Internet Penetration rate while nations such as the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong & Taiwan) should improve their position in the next few years even though the new ranking did not revealed strong improvements. However, even though this macroeconomic indicator is quite reliable to reflect a nation’s innovation, it is important to note that it tends to favor nations where the population is highly concentrated in urban areas. In this way, this ranking is a good complement to my post entitled The 10 Most Hi-Tech Cities in the World.
Happy new year to everyone and feel free to express what you think of this new ranking?
Jean-Francois Belisle
P.S.: The following blog post entitled Worlwide Internet Penetration Rate Part 3 is an update of both this post and this ranking.
