SINGAPORE - Software piracy in Singapore dipped in the last three years, according to a global software survey; but the Republic continues to have one of the highest software piracy rates amongst developed nations.

A report on unlicensed software installation, released on Wednesday(May 25) by global marketing industry watchdog Business Software Alliance (BSA) and market research firm IDC, revealed that almost one in three consumers, IT managers and enterprise PC users surveyed here say they have installed at least one unlicensed PC software in 2015.

Thirty per cent of programs installed in homes and offices here last year are unlicensed, according to the survey. It was a slight improvement from 2013, when the figure stood at 32 per cent.

This puts Singapore fourth in the Asia-Pacific region, behind Japan and New Zealand (18 per cent), and Australia (20 per cent).

Using pirated software could lead to security breaches, said BSA's senior director in the Asia-Pacific Tarun Sawney. In a press conference, he said: "If you don't have licensed software, you don't get things like patches that protect you from the latest malware or cyber-attacks."

The best-performing countries globally were the United States at 17 per cent, followed by Japan and New Zealand, and Luxembourg at 19 per cent.

The worst offenders were Libya and Zimbabwe , both with a 90 per cent software piracy rate.