Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lead the Arab countries on the total connectivity front for 2003. Qatar was the leader with the highest score recorded on a survey conducted by the Arab Advisors Group.
The Arab Advisors Group calculates its Total Country Connectivity Measure (TCCM) by adding the household mainlines penetration, GSM penetration, and Internet users penetration rates in each country. The household mainlines penetration is measured by dividing the residential mainlines by the number of households in each country.
Qatar topped the TCCM 2002 scores with a 194 percent mark, followed by Bahrain with 184 percent, Kuwait with 174 percent, the UAE with 171 percent and Lebanon with 107 percent.
“The TCCM for 2002 results revealed that Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE lead the Arab countries in terms of total connectivity followed by Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Oman. Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria scored the lowest on the total connectivity measure,” Arab Advisors Group Senior Research Analyst, Sami Sunna’ wrote in the report.
“When looking at the contribution of each of the communication technologies in the overall connectivity measure, the Arab Advisors Group found that the contribution of Internet had a significant effect in propelling the TCCM in Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, and Lebanon. However, Qatar that had the highest total connectivity actually had a low Internet share compensated with a very high household mainlines penetration of more than 143 percent.”
At 97 percent, Saudi Arabia came close to 100 percent, a mark that the country has certainly exceeded in 2003. Jordan followed with 79 percent, followed by Oman with 78 percent, Syria with had a low score of 54 percent, with Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria scoring even lower at 48, 46, 44 and 35 percent respectively.
The TCCM shows the extent of connectivity of individuals in a certain country whether via fixed lines, GSM lines and/or Internet. There is overlap since many individuals will be using these three communications technologies at the same time. 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 percent, this means that at least 40 percent of the population are not users of any of the three services constituting the measure. While a TCCM score of more than 100 percent is very positive, it nonetheless, does not mean that all the population uses the services due to overlap of usage. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
