Vietnam's position in Huawei's Global Connectivity Index 2020 (Photo: VNA) Since 2015, the GCI has tracked the progress of 79 economies in deployingdigital infrastructure and capabilities.
This year’s index benchmarks 79 countries according to their performance in 40indicators that track the impact of ICT on a nation’s economy, digitalcompetitiveness, and future growth. Combined, these countries account for 95 percentof global GDP.
Starters are proactively catching up with the other clusters. The averagescores of all three clusters have improved since 2015, with Starters showingthe highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) with 4.95 percent, followed byAdopters (4.58 percent) and Frontrunners (3.38 percent).
Starters improved in broadband performance faster than the other clusters, saidthe report. Over the last five years, they have increased mobile broadbandadoption by over 2.5 times, with several countries achieving close to 100 percentcoverage.
Their 4G subscriptions rose from an average of 1 percent in 2015 to an averageof 19 percent in 2019. In some countries, 30 percent of the population hashigh-speed 4G mobile broadband coverage.
Mobile broadband affordability, as measured by the cost of mobile broadbanddivided by GNI per capita, has improved by 25 percent.
Increased Internet access has opened up new economic opportunities, causingannual spending on e-commerce to almost double since 2014 to more than 2,000USD per person in 2019.
Some Starters were moving up the GCI cluster, increased their GCI scores by upto 17 percent, and managed to raise GDP to a level that was 22 percent higherthan some peers.
Vietnam is one of the countries becoming adopter economies last year.
Economies with higher ICT maturity could drive digital transformation torespond quicker to the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigating the negative impact on GDPper capita by 50 percent, says the report.
Organisations in economies with higher GCI scores are able to react faster tothe COVID-19 pandemic and use digital tools and services to mitigate the impactof lockdowns and social distancing. Due to the availability of high-speedbroadband, cloud services, AI, and IoT solutions, they could quickly implementdistributed workforce models, migrate to e-commerce platforms, and digitallytransform their operations to maintain business continuity, it says.
The forecast decline in their GDP per capita is about 50 percent lower than foremerging GCI economies, it says./.
VNA
