Digital

Overview

According to the European Commission’s Annual Single Market Report 2021, the digital industrial ecosystem covers ICT manufacturing, services (excluding telecommunications), and telecommunications. In terms of NACE codes, this encompasses computer programming, consultancy, and information service activities, telecommunications, publishing activities, and to a certain degree the manufacturing of computer, electronics and optical products, as well as the repair of computers and personal and household goods. The Digital industrial ecosystem can be considered as a horizontal ecosystem, insofar that it serves other industrial ecosystem as regards their digital transition. Its progress at EU level is to a large extent guided by the Digital Decade Compass and policy programme, which will guide Europe's digital transformation in skills, infrastructure, business and government.

In 2019, the digital industrial ecosystem employed 6.6 million people, and the value added was roughly EUR 674 billion. While, compared to the other industrial ecosystems, the digital industrial ecosystem is somewhere in the middle as regards employment and gross added value, the ecosystem has known the largest employment growth and gross value added growth between 2015 and 2019. Furthermore, in 2018, the ecosystem included 1.2 million firms, of which 99.8% were SMEs. Within the digital industrial ecosystem, the NACE category ‘computer programming, consultancy and information service activities’ contributes the most to the ecosystem’s employment and added value.

The European Monitor of Industrial Ecosystems (EMI) project has produced its first yearly report on the Digital ecosystem, highlighting data on its progress across several dimensions, including industrial performance, technology generation and uptake, start-up trends, and skills, with a particular focus on its green transition.

Overview

Download the report