The Washington, DC-based Business Software Alliance said that $80bn worth of software was installed on business and consumer computers last year, but only $51bn of this was legally purchased.
In China, 92% of software was pirated. Vietnam showed a similar rate, with the Ukraine showing a 91% rate. Indonesia and Russia rounded out the top five offenders, with rates of 88% and 87% respectively.
The US was the most compliant nation, with a piracy rate of just 22%. The UK was the eighth most compliant, with a 29% rate of piracy.
However, losses to piracy are related to the total size of the market in a particular country. Therefore, the US showed the biggest loss to piracy, at $6.5bn. China came second with losses of $3.8bn.
While Asia is viewed as the prime offender in the piracy stakes, the overall piracy rate in the region was 53%. The highest rate of piracy was in Eastern Europe, with 71%. Piracy rates in Western Europe were 36%, and in North America, 23%.
The figures show that the big challenge facing the software industry is to choke off piracy in developing markets, where losses are set to swell as IT penetration increases.
