World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019

World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019: India has risen by four places to be ranked 44th in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019 (WDCR). In 2018, India was ranked at the 48th position and its position this year has improved overall in all factors including future readiness in exploring more digital technologies, knowledge and technology.

India’s biggest improvement in 2019 was in the technology sub-factor level, where it held the first position in telecommunications investment.

World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019

The World Digital Competitiveness Ranking measures the capacity of countries to develop, adopt and explore digital technologies, which transform business models, government practices and society in general.

The Index ranks the countries based on the following three factors:

1. Knowledge: The capacity to understand and learn new technologies.

2. Technology: The competence to develop new digital innovations.

3. Future readiness: The preparedness for the coming developments.

Top 5 countries in World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019

1. United States

2. Singapore

3. Sweden

4. Denmark

5. Switzerland

World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019: Key Highlights

• The top 5 countries in the 2019 Digital Competitiveness index did not change this year. The US continued to top the rankings list, followed by Singapore at 2nd, Sweden at 3rd, Denmark at 4th rank and Switzerland at 5th rank.

• The other countries in the top ten included the Netherlands at the 6th rank, Finland at 7th, Hong Kong SAR at 8th, Norway at 9th and Republic of Korea at the 10th rank.

• Many Asian nations showed significant growth from last year in digital competitiveness, as Hong Kong and South Korea entered the top 10 for the first time, Taiwan moved up to the 13th place and China made a huge jump from the 30th position to the 22nd. Indonesia also showed massive growth by rising to 56th rank from its 62nd rank in 2018. China showed significant improvement in the knowledge factor.

• India also showed significant improvement by jumping up four places. In knowledge factor, India fared best in graduates in sciences and R&D productivity by publication.

• India fared best in the technology factor, especially in the telecommunications investment and IT& media stock market capitalization. India has to still, however, work on enforcing contracts, mobile broadband subscribers, wireless broadband and internet users.

• In future-readiness, India fared best in world robots distribution and requires to work more on tablet possession.