ICT ranked 78th in global index, 10th within region

Thailand’s ICT Development Index (IDI) ranking this year edged up a notch to 78th from 79th last year out of 176 countries.

The gain was attributed to continuous growth of mobile broadband access and usage and the nationwide roll-out of the fourth-generation (4G) network.

The International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) “Measuring the Information Society Report” (MISR) 2017 put Thailand as 10th in Asia-Pacific among 34 countries, the same as last year.

The MISR 2017 highlights progress made by countries as well as persistent digital divides. The IDI has three sub-indices: access, use and skills. Access captures ICT readiness, infrastructure; use captures ICT intensity and usage indicators; the skills sub-index seeks to capture capabilities or skills that are important for ICT.

Ioane Koroivuki, regional director of the ITU office for Asia-Pacific, said the report showed that Iceland topped the IDI rankings in 2017, moving up from the second place last year. South Korea dropped to the second from its top rank in 2016.

Additionally, the top-ten rankings include seven countries in Europe and three economies in the Asia-Pacific region that have experienced high levels of ICT investment and innovation over many years.

The three Asia-Pacific countries that are ranked in the top-ten IDI ranking comprise South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. Hong Kong ranks sixth in the IDI ranking among 176 countries, the same rank as it was in 2016, while Japan ranks 10th this year, up from 11th last year.

Mr Koroivuki said the MISR demonstrates that the difference in the ICT Development I ndex between regions and individual countries are associated mainly with levels of economic development.

Thailand has improved its rank in the skill sub-index from 81st last year to 70th in 2017, while remaining 68th in the use subindex for the second consecutive year.

ITU secretary-general Houlin Zhao said Thailand’s IDI ranking i n 2016 had improved from 2015 due to high growth of mobile broadband usage in the country after the 4G licence auction in 2015 as well as the government’s digitally-driven economic policy.

Mr Zhao said he believes overall Thailand’s IDI ranking in 2018 will be significantly better than 2017 as digital infrastructure development and human resource capabilities in the country continue to be improved.