Portugal - needs significant improvement across consumer and business to boost ICT performance

Portugal moves up one place to 21st position in the Connectivity Scorecard 2010 study; however the country continues to perform below average, particularly in the consumer and business sub-categories with only a few bright spots in the infrastructure domain. For example, tele-density in Portugal is high, implying near-universal access to mobile and fixed-line telephones. The proportion of 3G connections in all mobile connections is also a little above the European average and the country boasts of a strong proportion of businesses that use broadband.

On the other hand, Portugal displays a very strong performance in the government sector. It has the highest score among all countries in terms of government R&D spending (excluding military R&D) as a proportion of GDP and scores very respectably on the UN E-Readiness index and the proportion of schools with broadband. 

The country however trails most of its counterparts including the Northern European nations of Scandinavia, the Netherlands and even Belgium on most ICT measures. While it is true that GDP per capita and ICT performance have a two-way relationship, Portugal could become one of the exceptions such as Korea, which performs well despite being a relatively less affluent country. Portugal is therefore in a position where it could significantly boost its ICT performance provided it makes concerted efforts in doing so.

Portugal Connectivity Performance by Scorecard Component