Dubai: The UAE scored 329.5 per cent to become the most connected country in the Arab world last year, followed by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, according to the Arab Advisors Group's annual Total Country Connectivity Measure (TCCM) report.
The group calculates the TCCM by adding the household mainlines penetration, cellular penetration and internet users penetration rates in each country.
"Convergence presents us with a great opportunity that the media and telecom business can greatly benefit from, as new sources of revenue are emerging," said Engineer Basem Rousan, the Jordanian Minister of Information and Communications Technology.
The TCCM shows the extent of connectivity of individuals in a certain country whether via fixed lines, cellular lines and/or internet. There will be an overlap obviously as many will be using these technologies simultaneously.
However, the measure still yields an accurate and informative picture on the level of ICT services penetration in each country. For example, if a country has a TCCM measure of 60 per cent, this means that at least 40 per cent of the population are not users of any of the three services constituting the measure. While a TCCM score of more than 100 per cent is very positive, it does not mean that the whole population uses the services.
"As usual, the main driver in the increasing TCCM scores by end of 2007 in the Arab world was cellular subscribers growth with internet services contributing a much lower portion of the increase. Still there were some bright spots such as the growth in broadband in Saudi Arabia and fixed wireless services in Morocco that contributed greatly to an enhanced TCCM score of the two countries, " said Arab Advisors Group's founder and general manager Jawad Jalal Abbassi.
Comparing the 2007 and 2006 ranking reveals that the UAE has kept its "number one" spot, while Bahrain moved into the second place, up from the third in 2006. Saudi Arabia moved up to the third place in 2007 from the fourth place in 2006. Qatar slipped to the fourth place down from the second in 2006, largely due to the restatement of official population figures at a much higher figure, which was the case in Bahrain as well.
Kuwait maintained its fifth position, while Libya switched positions with Oman taking the sixth place, up from the seventh in 2006. "Enhancing the growth in the Arab broadband internet markets - a prerequisite for any knowledge-based economy - will require coordinated and intensive policies and initiatives," Abbassi said.
