India – requires massive efforts to catch up with BRIC peers

India delivers the weakest performance among BRIC countries on the Connectivity Scorecard 2010, finishing in 21st position. Like China, its performance is impacted by the ‘per capita’ measures utilized in the Scorecard but India fails to match its neighbor’s strong scores in consumer infrastructure, and disappoints in both consumer and business segments.

India’s consumer infrastructure is modest at best. The country lags behind many of its peers, including some in Africa, in terms of mobile network coverage. Its internet subscription and usage levels are also moderate. The country delivers weak performance in the area of business infrastructure, with low penetration of personal computers (PC) as well as secure internet servers. India does not perform any better in business usage and skills, with the enterprise sector reporting low spending on IT services and below-par international voice telephony usage.

It’s important to highlight that there are several pockets of excellence in India that lead in ICT adoption. However, this is outweighed by the large gaps in ICT access and usage in the country. India, therefore, needs to continue investing to develop its consumer and business infrastructure, and to further ICT knowledge and skills among different user segments.

India Connectivity Performance by Scorecard Component