Value of internet economy to double to €3.2 trillion by 2016 – report
Friday January 27 2012
THE VALUE of the internet economy in the G20 will rise from €1.8 trillion to €3.2 trillion by 2016, a new report commissioned by the Boston Consulting Group claims.
According to the BCG report, mobile web access is the primary reason for the significant growth.
The study assumes that half the world’s current population, or 3 billion people, will be online by 2016.
Four out of five of those are likely to be going online via smart mobile phones.
In 2010, the internet economy accounted for just over 4pc of the G20 economies, but Boston’s researchers suggested that by 2016 it will be much more thoroughly integrated into the wider economic picture. They claimed that each household currently researches around £2,000 worth of purchases online before buying.
The report adds that different companies will seek to tie users in to their particular ecosystmes. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and others are cited alongside Google.
The report concedes that there is already no standard way of measuring what part of an economy is ‘digital’, but Google’s Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette told the BBC that integrating the web into more devices could unlock new data that would make businesses even more efficient.
- Matt Warman
© Telegraph.co.uk
