Since 2000, the Economist Intelligence Unit has published an annual e-readiness ranking of the world’s largest economies. 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. Our

ranking methodology has undergone significant modification in 2005: many criteria have been reweighted to reflect their increasing importance in determining e-readiness, such as broadband access and mobile penetration. New metrics have also been added, such as innovation and the penetration of public-access wireless 'hotspots'.

Among the main conclusions of this year’s rankings:

Europe dominates. West European countries take seven of the top ten spots in this year's rankings, and the Nordics occupy four of them. Denmark (in 1st place), Sweden (3rd), Finland (6th) and Norway (9th) remain best in class in key areas of connectivity, such as mobile penetration and Internet use. The first two are also standard-setters in e-government implementation. Broadband development has also helped Switzerland rise to 4th place, and the Netherlands to keep its 8th spot.

America resurgent. The US has recovered the number two position after falling back in the previous year. Not only has the US seen broadband adoption surge forward, but the country remains a global leader in secure Internet server penetration and ICT spending.

Hong Kong leads in Asia-Pacific. Moving up to 6th place, Hong Kong has overtaken Singapore (11th) as the top Asian performer in the rankings, thanks to innovative development of e-business services, a positive legal and policy environment and advances in mobile services. South Korea (18th) remains the worlds most developed broadband access market, but refinements to our model have revealed weaknesses in that country's e-readiness armour, such as in Internet security.

Emerging markets have some e-readiness elements in place. All the components of a digital economy—infrastructure, security, transparency, innovation and skills—must be properly interlaced to ensure adequate e-readiness. These are still in deficit in most emerging markets, but a few are world-class or near to it in selected areas, the best examples being Estonia (26th), Slovenia (27th) and the Czech Republic (29th) with their strong development of e-government services. India (49th) and China (54th) remain on the lower rungs of the e-readiness ladder, but are making growing contributions to the global digital economy on the strength of a strong ICT skills base (India) and a prodigious ICT manufacturing sector (China).