By Olivia Nottebohm, James Manyika, Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui and Abdur-Rahim Syed

The Internet today connects about two billion people worldwide. Half of these are living outside the advanced economies, often in countries that are quickly climbing the developmental ladder, with  diverse populations and inarguable economic potentialities; countries as varied as Algeria, South Africa, China, Iran and Mexico. One indicator of development is Internet adoption. The pace at which countries outside of the advanced economies are adopting the Internet is much faster than that of advanced economies, yet 64 percent of the population in these countries remain unconnected. Research by us and others has highlighted the power of the Internet to contribute to economic growth and prosperity, and provide individuals, entrepreneurs, enterprises, and even governments with new ways to connect, consume and deliver products, services and content.

Few studies have focused on the impact of the Internet and the opportunity it offers in the developing world. The bulk of the research, including our own, has thus far looked at developed countries and focused primarily on the quantitative impact of the Internet on GDP. In this report, we take a different tack, choosing to examine more populous and faster growing parts of the world where the Internet offers even greater potential. We look beyond the impact of the Internet on GDP: we measure its broader impact in terms of consumer surplus and the development of Internet ecosystems.

We also look at how different participants have benefited from the Internet already, specifically measuring country environments for e-commerce and entrepreneurship, and analyzing in detail the impact of the Internet on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Finally, we try to assess the potential for future impact of the Internet on these countries.

We have defined 30 countries as “aspiring”: i.e., those with the economic size and dynamism to be significant players on the global stage in the near future and achieve levels of prosperity approaching those of the advanced economies. Together, these 30 countries represent 30 percent of global GDP. We have studied nine of these in particular detail: Argentina, Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam. The combined GDP of this group constitutes one-fifth of the GDP of our set of 30 aspiring countries. We chose not to study India or China, the two largest aspiring countries, as we have covered them previously in other reports.

While the aspiring countries vary in terms of the nature and development of their Internet ecosystems, as well as the nature of opportunities and challenges they face, it was overwhelmingly clear that the potential for the Internet to transform these economies is quite significant. Each country we studied offered its own unique insights in terms of impact to date, opportunities, and challenges in a way that makes the country case studies interesting in their own right.

The report makes seven key findings:

1. The Internet is growing at a tremendous rate in aspiring countries, but with distinctly different growth paths.
2. The impact of the Internet in aspiring countries has been significant, but there is tremendous potential impact if these countries reach developed world levels of access and usage.
3. Individuals in aspiring countries have utilized the Internet in significant and dynamic ways.
4. Entrepreneurs in aspiring countries have thrived despite Internet ecosystem constraints.
5. There is tremendous potential for enterprises to leverage and gain benefits from the Internet—much more than they do today.
6. Governments and the public sector are starting to offer better and more accessible public services through the Internet, but still have opportunity to go further
7. Aspiring countries can leverage their distinct characteristics to drive the development of Internet ecosystems.

This report originally appeared on McKinsey's Telecoms, Media and High Tech extranet.

To see the discussion of these points, and the rest of the report, download the PDF.