Italy – wide gaps in consumer and business performance

Italy finishes at 22nd position in the bottom five performers amongst Innovation driven economies on the Connectivity Scorecard 2010. The country lags behind in the adoption and usage of Information and Communications Technology, both in the consumer and business segments.

Italy’s main strength in the consumer segment is mobile adoption. However this is overshadowed by weaknesses in household broadband penetration as well as the quality and speed of the infrastructure. The country gets its lowest scores in consumer usage and skills; as Italian consumers are not frequent users of internet banking and e-commerce, or even voice and SMS services.

Italy’s business performance is mixed While the enterprise sector fares well in broadband penetration and adoption of enterprise data protocols, its performance dwindles in areas such as personal computer penetration and business investments in ICT assets, research and development. Italy also offers a mixed performance on the government-related metrics, with high usage of e-government services offset by low consumer interest.

A lot of countries with lower per capita incomes are catching up with or surpassing Italy on ICT measures, which should serve as a wake-up call to the country. It needs to boost its consumer and business infrastructure and overcome issues that are hampering the adoption of ICT by consumers and businesses alike.

Italy Connectivity Performance by Scorecard Component