IDC Announces G20 IoT Development Opportunity Index Rankings; Korea Ranked 2nd

IDC (www.idc.com) announced the rankings of the readiness index for the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) among G20 countries in 2016 through a recently published research report.

Since its initial release in 2013, the updated index consists of 13 criteria that IDC currently considers necessary for the continued development of IoT, and reflects each country's economic conditions, technological readiness, and business readiness to leverage the benefits associated with IoT efficiency.

In this survey, the United States, South Korea, and the United Kingdom were selected as the three countries best prepared to generate and profit from IoT. The United States received particularly high scores in evaluation categories such as ease of business, government efficiency, innovation, cloud infrastructure, GDP, and the proportion of technology investment in GDP.

Despite having a relatively low GDP compared to other top-tier countries, Korea received a very high score in terms of a business environment that promotes investment and innovation specialized in IoT and fosters attractive investment opportunities. Likewise, the UK also received high scores in business ease, government efficiency, quality of regulation, startup procedures, innovation, and high-speed internet penetration.

The country that stood out in this ranking was Australia, which ranked 4th. Although its GDP is relatively small, it received exceptionally high scores in evaluation categories such as ease of doing business, startup procedures, government efficiency, quality of regulation, innovation, and education.

"Many countries are adopting the Internet of Things as a key initiative to secure or maintain a competitive edge," said Vernon Turner, Senior Vice President and Head of Enterprise Systems and IoT Research at IDC. "National IoT indices will help global and local IT vendors identify opportunities and formulate strategies at the government, local, and enterprise levels."

IDC predicted that an ideal set of countries ready to advance and foster IoT opportunities could be found within the G20. These are nations that not only demonstrate excellence in overall economic standing, business readiness, and technological readiness, but also require the efficiencies generated by IoT solutions across various sectors. IDC believes that countries with high scores in this ranking have a more urgent need for the efficiencies that can be generated from IoT solutions, are more proactive in business and product innovation, and are likely to effectively utilize technologies associated with IoT use cases.

Kim Kyung-min, a senior research analyst at IDC Korea responsible for IoT research, stated, "IDC's assessment of the IoT development capabilities of G20 countries shows somewhat encouraging results." However, he noted that since conditions vary by country, pure GDP size is not necessarily the most accurate indicator of a nation's capacity and readiness to accelerate IoT development. Kim continued, "In the case of Korea, it ranked second in the IoT Development Opportunity Index, receiving high scores in the areas of IoT spending and investment relative to GDP." However, he predicted that investment in foundational infrastructure, particularly cloud services, needs to be further stimulated from the perspective of long-term IoT industry maturity, as investment in ICT and cloud infrastructure relative to GDP—another evaluation criterion—appeared relatively low.