Seychelles’ internet subscriptions have risen to 139,850 in June 2024(File photo: Seychelles News Agency)
(Seychelles News Agency) – Seychelles has been ranked among the countries with the highest levels of information and communication technology (ICT) development in Africa, according to a report published at the end of June by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Seychelles retains its ranking as the third in Africa in the 2024 report, while the island nation sits 78th in the world.
The country has gained 3.8 more points compared to last year, moving from 80.9 points in 2023, to 84.7 points in 2024.
Libya steps up to top place in the African continent with a score of 88.1 points, with Morocco occupies the second step of the podium with a score of 86.8 points, ahead of Seychelles (84.7 points), Mauritius (84.2), which lost its first place, South Africa (83.6), Algeria (80.9), Botswana (78.7), Tunisia (77.2) and Egypt (76.8), while Gabon closes the African Top 10 with a score of 74.7 points.
The report, titled “Measuring digital development – ICT Development Index 2024,” evaluates the state of ICT development in 170 nations and territories worldwide using ten indicators.
These indicators include the percentage of people who use the Internet, mobile broadband penetration, the volume of traffic on mobile broadband, the cost of mobile data and voice services, and the rate of ownership of mobile phones.
Each indicator is assigned a score between 0 and 100 points, depending on the countries and territories under investigation.
An overall score, also ranging from 0 (complete lack of connectivity) to 100 points (excellent connectivity), was then generated for each country by adding the scores of the various indicators with the same importance.
In Seychelles, since June 2020 to date, internet traffic data has increased by 254 percent, to its current value of 17,644,347GB, from only 4,989,210 GB, while the amount of international internet bandwidth purchased by service providers, has increase from 17.870 megabytes per second (Mbps), in 2020 to 221,774 Mbps, in June 2024.
The increase in data consumption is on par with the amount of internet subscriptions in the country, which has also increased significantly over the last five years, rising from 112,334 in 2020, to 139,850 in June 2024, which includes personal and business subscriptions in the country of a population approximately 120,500.
Meanwhile, globally, Kuwait leads the ranking with 100 points, followed by Finland with 98.1, while the rest of the top ten is made up of Estonia (97.9), Qatar (97.8), Singapore (97.8), UAE (97.5), Bahrain (97.5), Hong Kong (97.4), Denmark (97.1) and the U.S. (96.7).
