Bangladesh Ranks 105th in Global Innovation Index, 67th in Mobile App Creation
Bangladesh has moved up one place in the global innovation capacity ranking, but its overall position remains near the bottom. In the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Global Innovation Index 2026, Bangladesh scored 21.5 to rank 105th among 137 countries.
WIPO published the index on September 29, 2026. The index is prepared by analysing the innovation capacity and success of countries around the world. In 2025 Bangladesh ranked 106th; this time it has moved up one place to 105th.
Among lower-middle-income countries, Bangladesh ranks 20th. In the list of 10 countries in the Central and Southern Asia region, Bangladesh ranks tenth. In other words, Bangladesh is at the very back even within its own region, which highlights the weakness of its innovation structure.
A bright exception within this is mobile app creation. In this field Bangladesh scored 67.6 to take 67th place globally. The work of young IT-based entrepreneurs and developers appears to be playing a major role behind this progress, as the index picture suggests.
Bangladesh has also done comparatively well in government online services. In this indicator it scored 68.4 to rise to 67th place. Initiatives to expand digital services are reflected in this result.
In the infrastructure pillar, Bangladesh's total score is 40.2 and its global rank is 84th. Under it, in the information and communication technology sub-index, the country scored 65.5 to rank 93rd. In ICT access it scored 55.4 to rank 117th, and in ICT use it scored 72.6 to rank 91st.
In creative outputs, Bangladesh's overall score is 16.8 and its rank is 87th. In the intangible assets sub-index, Bangladesh scored 20.2 to hold 81st position.
The detailed indicators present a mixed picture. In top-15 intangible asset intensity, Bangladesh scored 40.4 to rank 61st. But in the trademark indicator it scored just 4.8 to rank 124th, and in industrial design it scored 0.6 to rank 77th.
In online creativity, Bangladesh scored 23.8 to rank 90th. Within that, it scored 0.2 points in top-level domains to rank 123rd, and 3.6 in GitHub commits to rank 98th. In creative goods and services, Bangladesh's total index is just 2.8.
In regional comparison, India leads Central and Southern Asia at 38th place. Kazakhstan has risen to 73rd to take second in the region, and Bhutan is third at 74th. Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan each moved up four places to 92nd and 95th respectively, while Nepal is at 104th — just one place above Bangladesh.
Competition is growing in other regions too. In East and Southeast Asia, Vietnam is 43rd, Thailand 44th, Mongolia 72nd and Cambodia 93rd. Saudi Arabia is 42nd, Tunisia 71st, Egypt 83rd, Azerbaijan 85th, Lebanon 86th and Algeria 111th.
The Global Innovation Index helps understand a country's economic progress, infrastructural base and development of creativity. The message for Bangladesh is clear — even though it has capacity in specific areas such as app creation and online services, its overall position will not advance much unless it overcomes its lag in research, design, trademarks and creative industries.
