Where can I find statistics on computer usage, especially in the developing world?

[Gigantopithecus]

I'm looking for recent stats on how many people in the world use computers; I'm especially interested in usage stats in the developing world. Been looking through JStor, Web of Science, Scirus, Google Scholar, & Google & haven't come up with much at all!

Thanks for your help!

Edit: I found some good info at ITU.org. Looks like they're pegging the number of internet users globally at around 600 million people, with about 150 million of those being in the developed world. This is from 2002. Anything better?

 

[imported_inspire]

You won't find much recent literature on JSTOR - there's usually about a 5 year lag on articles in journals that JSTOR archives.

 

[frostedflakes]

Articles and literature about the pc-1 initiative may have some useful and up-to-date information.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/empowered/

 

[Brentx]

There is also the 50x15 initiative by AMD.

Here's the site:
http://50x15.amd.com/

 

[irishScott]

Try http://scholar.google.com/

 

[WildHorse]

(1) There's an army of economists attached to the following places, who play happily amidst piles of the sort of data you seek. Only thing is, you really have to dig hard to find exactly what you want. Not so easy as simply Googling a search word.

Best of all, try to identify & contact individual economists personally & let them refer you to the right data. Give those fluffy bottomed Ph.D.'s some exercise!

United Nations Statistics Division

World Bank Development Data & Statistics

The African Development Bank

The Islamic Development Bank

Inter-American Development Bank

Asian Development Bank

(2) Research librarian at any good university can aim your search at the right targets. Also, they know of lots of private and possibly fruitful-for-you databases you'll never hit with Google.

(3) Economics Prof. at any good university can tell you where to find that data.

(4) Computer trade associations probably can point you to marketing execs of member companies who have data like that, since "computer usage data" split out by country is fundamental marketing data that any worthwhile Sales / Marketing Dept. will have, basic to their jobs. Only thing is, they may deem it proprietary and be unwilling to share it since you might be their competitor, but in that case, you could try asking them for summarized versions they would be comfortable releasing to you.

(5) Look into US export trade data, for computers which would be a reasonable proxy indicator of PC consumption, implying usage. Only kink in that is, most PC exports probably are drop shipped from CHina / Taiwan directly to the customer nations, not reflected in US export data. Still you might look into what you can plow up to serve as a proxy indicator. You could even explore US export trade data for software, as a more indirect, yet maybe still suggestive, indicator of computer usage in LDCs.

 

[amish]

world factbook has the global internet users at 1,018,057,389 based on a 2005 estimate. you can browse the site to see which countries have the most internet users.