"Digital Planet 2000: The Global Information Economy" provides the only comprehensive view of ICT growth and spending worldwide that measures the size and impact of the global ICT industry on economic measures, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and its social effects regionally and nationally. The study covers the 55 largest markets and 98 percent of worldwide ICT spending. The 2000 version updates the study first published in 1998.
"The reason Nasdaq® sponsored Digital Planet is that we think the power of IT and communications to transform countries outside America and Europe is vastly under appreciated," said Alfred R. Berkeley, III, vice chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. "By measuring what the world is spending on ICT, Digital Planet helps us better understand its impact in terms of reduced costs, faster product development and improved service."
The Digital Planet executive summary stated that ICT applications are so pervasive in many emerging market economies today that it is hard to imagine major advances in health, science, business or education that do not have ICT at their core.
The study noted that language and customs may be different, but people around the globe share a common vision. They see the ability of ICT to erase social inequalities and improve the quality of life, according to the executive summary.
While the worldwide compound annual growth rate of spending on ICT is just over 7 percent, the hottest markets are the Middle East/Africa and the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan), which are growing at 19.5 percent and 15.9 percent rates, respectively. Close behind is Latin America, whose ICT spending is growing at better than 13 percent. Vietnam is growing the fastest, almost 35 percent over the last seven years, according to Digital Planet.
Digital Planet shows that every nation in the study increased ICT spending between 1992 and 1999, and that worldwide ICT spending will surpass $3 trillion annually by 2004. Those nations most invested in these technologies felt milder effects from economic events such as the Asian flu.
Berkeley said, "The cornucopia of technological breakthroughs developed in America, Europe and Japan that emerging markets have not always had quick access to is spilling over to them now. It is so transforming because even the disenfranchised can use a communications device, for example. You don't need to own land or have a license to operate them. That's a profound change."
While the United States, Japan and Germany remain the leaders in total annual ICT spending, the picture shifts dramatically when one looks at growth in spending, where regions with the smallest base are outpacing North America and Western Europe, which have mature infrastructures.
"Digital Planet demonstrates that the momentum in the global market for these technologies will remain strong," said Berkeley. "Nasdaq is the great engine of growth and the home of the companies providing the energy behind globalization. Indeed, the non-American companies that are coming to Nasdaq are mostly technology companies."
Of Nasdaq's nearly 5,000 listings, 496 are non-U.S. companies from 39 nations around the world.
