In a report due to be released next month, the OECD will present a picture of the state of the digital economies of its member countries.
In a report due to be released next month, the OECD will present a picture of the state of the digital economies of its member countries.
Overall, the number of adults in the OECD countries that use the internet increased from 60 per cent in 2005 to 80 per cent in 2013.
The gap between young and old varies according to country, but in the most advanced economies up to 95 per cent of young people are now internet users.
Buying products and services online has become the norm, with half of users doing so; and an increasing proportion of that is now via a mobile device.
An interesting set of data show the degree to which users in a particular country would watch YouTube content from that country.
This was highest in Japan, where 75 per cent of YouTube views were of Japanese videos, through to the US where 33 per cent of content viewed was of US origin.
In Australia, only 8 per cent of views were of Australian content.
Almost 75 per cent of OECD citizens now have a mobile wireless broadband subscription.
In Australia, there has been a radical increase in subscriptions since 2009 where the figure was less than 20 per cent, to now where there are more subscriptions than inhabitants.
Australia now has the second highest wireless broadband usage of all OECD countries.
Fixed, or wired, broadband subscriptions in OECD countries tell a different story.
South Korea leads the world with more than 70 per cent of fixed broadband subscribers having speeds above 10 megabytes per second.
The US is more than 30 per cent but Australia is down near the bottom of the list at 10 per cent.
The impact of information and communication technologies on the economy is huge.
ICT companies spend more on the research and development than the rest of the economy.
Across the OECD productivity in IT companies is about 60 per cent higher than the rest.
Other analyses have estimated that the impact of wireless broadband on the Australian economy has been around $34 billion a year.
• This article was originally published in The Conversation
