

Measuring the world’s 100 most influential tech companies

In 2020 the World Benchmarking Alliance’s first Digital Inclusion Benchmark ranks 100 of the world’s most influential technology companies on four areas of digital inclusion:
- enhancing universal access to digital technologies
- improving all levels of digital skills.
- fostering trustworthy use by mitigating risks and harms
- innovating openly, inclusively, and ethically.
The global pandemic has highlighted the urgency of digital inclusion, as we increasingly rely on digital technologies to stay connected, purchase daily necessities, and access healthcare and education. However, this accelerated digitalisation is accompanied by widening digital divides that lock billions of people out of the digital economy. Furthermore, trust in technology is fraying as citizens and governments wake up to the risks and harms of its unexamined and unrestrained applications.

Five key findings
The Digital Inclusion Benchmark results show that commitment and contribution towards digital inclusion is highly uneven across industries in the digital sector, measurement areas, and markets of operation. While a few leading companies comprehensively demonstrate best practices, most have yet to embrace digital inclusion as a core responsibility.

Software and IT services companies have some growing up to do
Software and IT service companies are lagging with an average score of only 0.53 out of 2 (27%) compared to 0.82 (41%) for hardware companies and 0.85 (43%) for telecommunications providers. Many software and IT service companies, especially the platform giants, are the youngest in the sector, having only been founded since the commercialisation of the internet. To mature into responsible corporate citizens they need to learn from digital inclusion best practices of other industries in the digital sector.

Clear and consistent support to improve digital skills needed, especially for women and girls
Out of the four digital inclusion measurement areas, companies scored lowest in ‘improving all levels of digital skills’, with an average score of 0.57 out of 2 (29%). The development of basic digital literacy programs is a particular area that the digital sector will need to focus on in order to leave no one behind in a digital world. There is also an opportunity for companies to help bridge the gender digital divide, through initiatives that target skills training for women and girls. In order to improve their efforts, digital technology companies need to be more transparent about their contribution and engage third parties for an objective evaluation of impacts.

Ethics require an urgent update to match our rapidly evolving digital age
While digital technologies do much to benefit the world, they also pose risks such as the loss of jobs, insecure employment and the spread of false information, whilst the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation raise concerns about potential harms related to fairness, bias and agency, to name a few. Of the 100 companies assessed, 55 had ethics oversight at a senior level but only 16 had an ethics policy for AI, of which only four are software and IT services companies. Traditional ethical issues such as bribery, corruption and harassment are often covered but ethical issues arising from AI and disruptive technologies also need urgent attention.

Online child safety should be a concern of all technology companies, but it isn’t
All digital technology companies impact child online safety, whether directly through product features and control over data flows, or indirectly through the supply chain. Only 16 digital companies of the 100 assessed demonstrated a high-level commitment to child online protection. If all technology companies make this commitment, together they can play a key role in protecting children online worldwide, by raising awareness and attracting resources to deal with the problem.

Best practice means staying ahead of the regulatory curve
Global leadership entails forward-looking company policies and actions that stay ahead of the regulatory curve. Leading companies are those that are adopting a principled and harmonized approach towards issues such as privacy rights, cybersecurity, child online protection, among many others. The 2020 Digital Inclusion Benchmarks results provide the starting point from which the digital sector can show improvements in the coming year and demonstrate their willingness and effort to self-regulate as responsible corporate citizens. Lack of tangible progress should require governments to step in with regulation and enforcement to ensure a safe and trustworthy digital system that leaves no one behind.

Find out the performance of the 100 most influential digital companies
Go to rankingThe 100 most influential digital companies
Locations
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Title: Oracle
Place: Redwood Shores, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Orange
Place: Paris, France
Description: -
Title: PayPal
Place: San Jose, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: PCCW
Place: Hong Kong, China
Description: -
Title: PLDT
Place: Makati, Philippines
Description: -
Title: Qualcomm
Place: San Diego, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Rogers
Place: Toronto, ON, Canada
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Title: Safaricom
Place: Nairobi, Kenya
Description: -
Title: Salesforce
Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Samsung
Place: Seoul, Republic of Korea
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Title: SAP
Place: Waldorf, Germany
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Title: Sina
Place: Beijing, China
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Title: Singtel
Place: Singapore
Description: -
Title: SK hynix
Place: Incheon, Republic of Korea
Description: -
Title: SK Telecom
Place: Seoul, Republic of Korea
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Title: SoftBank
Place: Tokyo, Japan
Description: -
Title: SpaceX
Place: Hawthorne, CA, USA
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Title: Spotify
Place: Stockholm, Sweden
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Title: Tata Communications
Place: Mumbai, India
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Title: Telecom Italia
Place: Rome, Italy
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Title: Telefónica
Place: Madrid, Spain
Description: -
Title: Telenor
Place: Fornebu, Norway
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Title: Telia
Place: Stockholm, Sweden
Description: -
Title: Telkom Indonesia
Place: Bandung, Indonesia
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Title: Telstra
Place: Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Title: Tencent
Place: Shenzhen, China
Description: -
Title: Texas Instruments
Place: Dallas, TX, USA
Description: -
Title: TSMC
Place: Taiwan
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Title: Türk Telekom
Place: Altindag (Ankara), Turkey
Description: -
Title: Twitter
Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Uber
Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: VEON
Place: Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Title: Verizon
Place: New York, NY, USA
Description: -
Title: Vodafone
Place: Newbury, United Kingdom
Description: -
Title: Western Digital
Place: San Jose, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Xiaomi
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: ZTE
Place: Shenzhen, China
Description: -
Title: Digicel
Place: Kingston, Jamaica
Description: -
Title: Digital Realty Trust
Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: eBay
Place: San Jose, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: EchoStar
Place: Englewood, CO, USA
Description: -
Title: Equinix
Place: Redwood City, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Ericsson
Place: Stockholm, Sweden
Description: -
Title: Etisalat
Place: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Description: -
Title: Facebook
Place: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Foxconn
Place: Taiwan
Description: -
Title: Grab
Place: Singapore
Description: -
Title: GTT
Place: Mclean, VA, USA
Description: -
Title: HCL
Place: Noida, India
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Title: HP
Place: Palo Alto, CA, USA
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Title: Huawei
Place: Shenzhen, China
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Title: IBM
Place: Armonk, NY, USA
Description: -
Title: Infosys
Place: Bangaluru, India
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Title: Intel
Place: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: JD.com
Place: Beijing, China
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Title: Jio
Place: Mumbai, India
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Title: Jumia
Place: Lagos, Nigeria
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Title: KDDI
Place: Tokyo, Japan
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Title: Lenovo
Place: Beijing, China
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Title: Meituan
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: Mercado Libre
Place: Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Title: Microsoft
Place: Redmond, WA, USA
Description: -
Title: Millicom
Place: Luxembourg
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Title: MTN
Place: Johannesburg, South Africa
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Title: MTS
Place: Moscow, Russia
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Title: Naspers
Place: Cape Town, South Africa
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Title: NetEase
Place: Hangzhou, China
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Title: Netflix
Place: Los Gatos, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Nokia
Place: Helsinki, Finland
Description: -
Title: NTT
Place: Tokyo, Japan
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Title: NVIDIA
Place: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Ola
Place: Bangalore, India
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Title: Ooredoo
Place: Doha, Qatar
Description: -
Title: Adobe
Place: San Jose, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Airbnb
Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Akamai
Place: Boston, MA, USA
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Title: Alibaba
Place: Hangzhou, China
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Title: Alphabet
Place: Mountain View, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Amazon
Place: Seattle, WA, USA
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Title: AMD
Place: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: América Móvil
Place: Mexico City, Mexico
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Title: Apple
Place: Cupertino, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: AT&T
Place: Dallas, TX, USA
Description: -
Title: Axiata
Place: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Description: -
Title: Baidu
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: Bharti Airtel
Place: New Delhi, India
Description: -
Title: Booking Holdings
Place: Norwalk, CT, USA
Description: -
Title: Broadcom
Place: San Jose, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: ByteDance
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: CenturyLink
Place: Monroe, LA, USA
Description: -
Title: China Mobile
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: China Satcom
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: China Telecom
Place: Beijing, China
Description: -
Title: China Unicom
Place: Hong Kong, China
Description: -
Title: Cisco
Place: San Jose, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Citrix
Place: Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
Description: -
Title: Cloudflare
Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
Description: -
Title: Comcast
Place: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Description: -
Title: Dell
Place: Round Rock, TX, USA
Description: -
Title: Deutsche Telekom
Place: Bonn, Germany
Description:
Further reading
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Synthesis report
This report presents the results of our first Digital Inclusion Benchmark. It presents the performance of 100 keystone digital companies against 16 indicators in the four measurement areas: access, skills, use and innovation.
Go to the synthesis report here