The EIU's latest rankings show that e-readiness continues to advance across the globe, and that the digital divide between the top and lower tiers continues to narrow, albeit more slowly. Indeed, the average e-readiness score of the 70 countries in this year's rankings rose to 6.39 (on a 1-10 scale), up from 6.24 in 2007.

This overall progress, however, masks some backtracking among a handful of countries, notably within the top ten, the EIU has found.

After four consecutive years as the world's most e-ready country, Denmark has fallen four places, as has Switzerland. Similarly, Finland has dropped three places, and has been supplanted in the top 10 by Austria.

The United States is now the global e-readiness leader, with a score of 8.95, followed closely by Hong Kong, which has advanced two places.

The EIU study noted that maintaining the momentum of digital development has become tough, with European ICT leaders unable, in some areas, to sustain the heady pace of development that they had previously established.

Both Finland and Denmark, for instance, were unable to maintain previous ICT spending levels or to improve upon already impressive public and corporate access to digital channels. By contrast, the EIU observed that those countries that have advanced in the top 10—the US, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Australia—have largely done so on the back of improvements in connectivity—both in fixed and wireless broadband access, as well as in their innovation environments.

“The world’s most developed digital economies—and many less developed ones—continue to record impressive gains in broadening access to ICT and making digital services available to the population,” commented Robin Bew, Editorial Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit, continuing:

“It is hard work to maintain this progress, however, and even the leaders have much to do to translate these gains into real economic and social benefits."

While the 'digital divide' between the developed and developing countries has continued to narrow, the EIU's latest rankings show that the pace of this narrowing has slowed. The least e-ready countries have registered no upward movement in their rankings (although most have improved their scores), partly because their business environments have deteriorated or improved only slightly. Connectivity improvements in some developing countries, particularly in Latin America, are also alarmingly slow. Other lower ranked countries, however, such as Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Egypt, have moved upwards thanks mainly to faster progress in connectivity.

"In our research we have identified three tiers of countries within the e-readiness rankings: established leaders, rapid adopters and late entrants," revealed Peter Korsten, Global Leader of the IBM Institute for Business Value. "These groups have remained relatively constant, but the most impressive improvements have been registered by the 'late entrants', as exemplified by countries such as Thailand, Peru, and Romania, which have risen in the rankings by up to 17 places between 2001 and 2008."

Since 2000, the Economist Intelligence Unit has published the annual e-readiness ranking of the world’s largest economies, using a model developed in co-operation with the IBM Institute for Business Value. A country’s “e-readiness” is a measure of its e-business environment, a collection of factors that indicate how amenable a market is to Internet-based opportunities. Increasingly, it is also about how individuals and businesses consume digital goods and services.