South Korea is no longer the most wired country in the world, an OECD report showed Sunday.

Finland overtook Korea in terms of wireless broadband penetration as of 2012, with Korea’s ranking falling to the fourth out of 34 OECD members.

This is the first time that Korea lost the top spot since the OECD started collecting relevant data in 2009.

According to the OECD statistics, the number of wireless broadband subscriptions was 103.4 per 100 people in Korea last year.

Finland took the top spot with 106.54 subscriptions, followed by Sweden with 104.83 and Australia with 103.36.

The drop in the Internet penetration ranking comes after the OECD revised the method of calculating the figures in December to prevent possible duplication among different mobile devices.

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said, however, the fast penetration of mobile phones in Scandinavian countries such as Finland and Sweden had a greater effect on the nation’s ranking.

“Korea is expected to continue to remain in third or fourth place in the coming years,” said a ministry official, adding that duplicated cases made up only a small fraction of the total number.

In 2011, Korea became the first OECD country to see its wireless Internet penetration exceed 100 percent.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)