New Technologies Adoption and Diffusion Patterns in Developing Countries. An Empirical Study for the Period 2000-2011

In recent years, enormous changes are noted worldwide during broad adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). These unique technologies – often perceived as economic development incentives – have a great ability to spread at high pace and low cost in countries all over the world, bringing people opportunities to contribute to economic development and growth. New Technologies play a special role in developing countries, where their in-country adoption lies in the centre of development strategies. ICT are treated as tools which bring people access to information, education and knowledge, offering unlimited possibilities for wealth-creation. The paper, purely empirical in nature, reports on the pace of adoption of new Information and Communication Technologies in developing countries, and – additionally – investigates country-specific ICT diffusion patterns. We expect to uncover the S-shape curve in the diffusion process in most of developing countries, as well as in the whole country sample. For the analysis purposes, we apply all counties which – according to the World Bank nomenclature – are classified as low-income and lower-middle-income economies. Our sample covers 46 countries (upper-middle-income and high-income economies are excluded from the study purposefully) which are classified as developing economies. The time framework is set for the period of 2000-2011. All data necessary for the analysis are derived from World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2012 (16th edition).