The UK is the tenth most advanced mobile internet country in the world, new analysis says, lagging behind competitors on key indicators such as affordability and infrastructure.

The UK came in behind Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, the US, Finland and Iceland.

The UK achieved a total score of 81.7, with the highest scorer Australia achieving 84.7 and second highest the Netherlands scoring 84.4. The US, in seventh place, scored 82.6.

The analysis comes from a new tool created by the GSMA, the mobile operator trade body which organises Mobile World Congress, which assesses countries on four different indicators. These are infrastructure, affordability, consumer readiness, content.

Infrastructure refers to availability and quality of networks and affordability refers to the availability of services at price points relative to the income of the population. Consumer readiness focuses on citizens and whether they have the awareness and skills necessary to use what is available, while content refers to the availability of online services and content available to consumers.

Broken down, the UK’s lowest score was in infrastructure, at 72.7 percent, followed by 77.1 percent in affordability.

It scored best in content at 90.3 percent, followed by consumer readiness at 88.1 percent.

At the very bottom of the table, in ascending order were Niger, Chad, Guinea, Malawi, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritania, Ethiopia and Mali.

The GSMA hopes that the tool will be used to inform projects that expand access to the internet.

“Already more than 3 billion people worldwide are accessing the internet via mobile, but this still leaves more than 4 billion people offline and excluded from the powerful opportunities for social and economic development that the mobile internet enables,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA.

“Mobile is the primary enabler of connectivity in developing world markets where the high cost of deploying fixed-line networks means that internet penetration is low.”

Granryd added that connectivity to the mobile internet would aid the delivery of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.