Ireland ranks sixth out of 28 European countries on this year’s European Digital Economy and Society Index after Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Malta.

Integration of digital technology

Ireland is also the country which has made the most significant progress over the last five years. The Digital Economy and Society Index monitors the performance of EU member states in five areas: digital connectivity, human capital, use of internet services, integration of digital technology and digital public services. Ireland is in top place for the integration of digital technology.

Ireland ranks sixth out of 28 European countries on this year’s European Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) with a score of 61.8 compared to an EU average score of 52.6. Over the last five years, Ireland was the fastest growing member state in the EU.

Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are the leaders in overall digital performance in the EU. Malta, Ireland and Estonia are following right after. The International Digital Economy and Society Index (I-DESI) shows that the best performing EU countries are also worldwide leaders.

The largest EU economies are not digital frontrunners, which indicates that the speed of digital transformation must accelerate for the EU to successfully deliver on the twin digital and green transformations.

Over the last five years, Ireland has made the most significant progress, followed by the Netherlands, Malta and Spain. These countries also perform well above the EU average as measured by the DESI score.

The Digital Economy and Society Index monitors the performance of EU member states in five areas: digital connectivity, human capital, use of internet services, integration of digital technology and digital public services.

Ireland ranks 23rd for digital connectivity, 11th for human capital, eighth for use of internet services, first for the integration of digital technology and ninth for digital public services.

Leading position in the use of ecommerce by SMEs

Based on data prior to the pandemic, Ireland continues to rank first in the integration of digital technology dimension, and has maintained a leading position in the use of ecommerce by SMEs. It entered the ‘top 10’ on the use of internet by individuals and recorded a notable increase in the share of internet users.

It maintained its top 10 position in digital public services, where it excels in open data and the provision of digital public services for businesses. There was no substantial change in Ireland`s position in the human capital and connectivity dimensions despite some improvement in key indicators where it has been lagging behind, such as the digital skills of the wider population.

On the integration of digital technology where Ireland is the top performer, the Index says “SMEs in Ireland continue to excel in e-commerce: 35% of them sell online and 18% sell to other EU countries, well above the EU averages of 18% and 8% respectively. 29% of their total turnover comes from online sales, almost three times the EU average of 11%. Irish companies also rank relatively high on the use of big data (20%), cloud services (33%) and social media (44%)”.

Download the Ireland country report here.