Azerbaijan leads region in ICT

/By AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan is leading the region in fixed broadband Internet, says a report from the International Telecommunication Union.

The country is in 52th place among 189 countries in fixed broadband internet, according to the ITU report. The “State of broadband 2015” report, published on September 22, provides data on the telecom industry for 2014.

Azerbaijan has improved its position by six points from 2011. ITU said that there are 19.8 Internet connections for every 100 people in Azerbaijan.

Among the countries of the former Soviet Union, Azerbaijan is ahead of Russia (56th place), Moldova (64th), Kazakhstan (70th place), Georgia (72 place), Armenia (83 place), Ukraine (86th place), Kyrgyzstan (104 place), Uzbekistan (130 place), Tajikistan (170 place) and Turkmenistan (178 place) in broadband access, according to the index.

The penetration rate of mobile broadband internet in the country is 46.8 percent. For this indicator, Azerbaijan takes 68th place worldwide.

In the index of penetration of broadband internet services to home users, Azerbaijan is in 26th place among 133 countries with a rate of 54.6 percent.

By the number of the individual internet users, Azerbaijan took the 63rd place among 191 countries with the index of 61 percent.

According to the ITU, Azerbaijan stands at 25th place among 140 developing countries in the number of individual users of the internet, with a rate of 61 percent.

The top three countries for this indicator include Qatar (91.5 percent), Bahrain (91 percent), and the UAE (90.4 percent).

Among 191 surveyed countries, the ITU’s State of Broadband Report 2014 puts Azerbaijan in 63rd place in terms of internet penetration among individual users with a rate of 58.7 percent.

The country also took the 46th place with a rate of 43.9 percent for the degree of penetration of mobile broadband.

Today, Azerbaijan is one of the leading countries implementing high technologies in the region. The country is confidently striving to enter the world ICT race.

Information and communication services worth 1.077 billion manats ($1,027 billion) were rendered to Azerbaijan's population and organizations in first eight months of 2015.

According to the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee, this figure is 10.8 percent more than in the same period of 2014.

The report show that some 81.1 percent of proceeds obtained from the sector, were accounted for by non-state enterprises.

Around 72.6 percent of the total volume of information and communication services accounted for the services rendered to the population. Some 54 percent of a total volume of obtained income was from mobile services.

A total volume of revenues obtained from mobile services in Azerbaijan hit 581.7 million manats in January-August, which is 2.2 percent less than in the same period of 2014.

The e-commerce market was worth roughly 8.2 million manats (about $7.8 million) in Azerbaijan in January-August 2015. Total retail sales in Azerbaijan amounted to 15.9 billion manats in January-August.