Computer ownership by country | Hacker News Reader

Computer ownership by country

economist.com

13 pointsdavidw13 comments

I've never been to 'Canda' so I can't speak to the issue.

I believe they mean Canadia.

And personally I think they mean 'Canada' :)

The list is from 2006. It would be interesting to see the current numbers for Brazil and Russia given their supposed ascendancy. Plus, half the world's population live in China and India, neither of which is on the list.

This is a made up list. There are too many countries missing and sources not cited.

Plus it's an ad! How is this in HN front page?

It's the top 50 countries, ranked by computers per 100 population. China and India are still quite rural. I would not expect a significant percentage yet.

I don't know about Russia, but the number for Brazil doesn't sound too farfetched, the percentage of people in the middle class there is rather slim compared to percentage of poor people, even today.

Ah. Israel has more computers than people.

Yes, I'm interested in this too. I knew Israel is tech-savvy (lots of startups, etc.), but I didn't expect this statistic to be so high.

Are there any Israelis here that could shed light on this?

I'm Israeli. I did expect it to be high on the list, but that gap between it and 2nd place is quite surprising...

I can think of a few reasons:

1. Israel is in a way similar to a big city - a small place and tightly knit. It's a young nation without much traditions so people are open to try new technologies and if they work out they quickly spread.

2. Since Israel's main industry is hi-tech (it's 2nd or 3rd in number of NASDAQ traded companies) having a computer is seen by parents as important for their childrens' future prospects.

3. There is some still kind of respect for knowledge mentality (you wouldn't know it from the reality shows on our TV channels, but it's one of the top book reading nations) which meshes well with the internet etc.

4. Game consoles and games are very expensive and thus not very popular in Israel. So all the kids need a computer in order to get their video game fix.

5. There isn't much poverty in Israel.

It would probably be very difficult to find a household in Israel that doesn't have a computer. (Not counting old people who don't know what a computer is)

I didn't think about #4 - good point.

All in all, I think the amazing gap (%50) between Israel and the next nation probably also stems from the high proportion of technology companies in Israel. All these companies that go through laptops and dev machines at high cycles must make a big difference.

everyone probably owns 1 PC + 1 Notebook

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