Statistics Explained

Archive:Information services statistics - NACE Rev. 2

Data from October 2015. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.

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This article presents an overview of statistics for the information service activities sector in the European Union (EU), as covered by NACE Rev. 2 Division 63. This sector includes, for example, data processing, web hosting, web portals, news agencies and information searches. It belongs to a set of statistical articles on 'Business economy by sector'

Table 1: Key indicators, information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Figure 1: Sectoral analysis of information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 (¹)
(% share of sectoral total) - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Table 2a: Sectoral analysis of key indicators, information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Table 2b: Sectoral analysis of key indicators, information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Table 3: Largest and most specialised Member States in information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 (¹) - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Table 4a: Key indicators, information service activities (NACE Division 63), 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Table 4b: Key indicators, information service activities (NACE Division 63), 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
Table 5: Key size class indicators, information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_sc_1b_se_r2)
Figure 2: Relative importance of enterprise size classes, information service activities (NACE Division 63), EU-28, 2012 (¹)
(% share of sectoral total) - Source: Eurostat (sbs_sc_1b_se_r2)
Table 6a: Employment by enterprise size class, information service activities (NACE Division 63), 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_sc_1b_se_r2)
Table 6b: Value added by enterprise size class, information service activities (NACE Division 63), 2012 - Source: Eurostat (sbs_sc_1b_se_r2)

Main statistical findings

Structural profile

There were 119 thousand enterprises operating within the information services (Division 63) sector in the EU-28 in 2012. Together they employed 511.7 thousand persons, equivalent to 0.4 % of the total workforce in the non-financial business economy (Sections B to J and L to N and Division 95) or 8.6 % of those persons employed in information and communication services (Section J). They generated EUR 31.4 billion of value added in 2012 which was a 0.5 % share of the non-financial business economy total and 6.1 % of the information and communication services total.

The apparent labour productivity of the EU-28’s information services sector in 2012 was EUR 61.0 thousand per person employed, which was the lowest level among the five NACE divisions that constitute information and communication services for which data are available. While the level of apparent labour productivity was below the EUR 87.0 thousand per person employed average for the whole of information and communication services, it was still higher than the non-financial business economy average (EUR 46.2 thousand per person employed).

The EU-28’s information services sector recorded average personnel costs of EUR 44.2 thousand per employee in 2012, which was the third lowest level among the six NACE divisions that compose information and communication services, between the non-financial business economy average of EUR 32.4 thousand per employee and the information and communication services average of EUR 51.7 thousand per employee.

The wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio combines the two previous indicators and shows the extent to which value added per person employed covers average personnel costs per employee. This ratio stood at 139.0 % for the EU-28's information services sector in 2012, which was slightly below the non-financial business economy average of 142.7 %, and even more adrift of the information and communication services average of 168.0 %.

Sectoral analysis

The information services sector is divided, according to NACE, into just two subsectors (NACE groups). Just over three quarters (78.3 %) of the enterprises classified within the EU-28’s information services sector in 2012 had their principal activity within data processing, hosting and related activities and web portals (Group 63.1). The relative importance of this subsector was almost identical in terms of its contribution to sectoral value added (80.2 %) and employment, as it accounted for 78.2 % of the information services sectoral workforce, equivalent to 400 thousand persons.

Given the relatively large weight of the data processing, hosting and related activities and web portals subsector there was not a great deal of difference between the figures recorded for this subsector in relation to average productivity measures and the figures recorded for the whole of the information services sector. The residual grouping of other information service activities (Group 63.9) had higher levels of apparent labour productivity (EUR 77.0 thousand per person employed in 2011) and lower wage-adjusted labour productivity (130.0 % in 2012) in the EU-28.

Country analysis

The United Kingdom recorded the highest level of value added (EUR 8.7 billion) among the EU Member States for which data are available for the information services sector in 2012, which represented 27.7 % of EU-28 value added. Germany had the second highest share of value added (17.8 %), just ahead of Italy (16.0 %). With the addition of France, the four largest EU Member States within the information services sector contributed approximately three quarters of the EU-28’s value added (74.7 %). Slovakia was the most specialised EU Member State, as 1.0 % of its non-financial business economy value added was generated within the information services sector; the United Kingdom, Austria and Italy were also relatively specialised, as the information services sector accounted for more than 0.7 % of the value added that was generated in their non-financial business economies in 2012. A more detailed analysis reveals that Slovakia had the highest degree of specialisation for data processing, hosting and related activities and web portals, while the United Kingdom was the most specialised EU Member State in the other information service activities subsector.

By contrast, the least specialised EU Member States included Greece, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia, Romania, Cyprus and Belgium, as the information services sector contributed 0.3 % or less of the total value added generated in each of their non-financial business economies in 2012; this was also the case of Norway.

The United Kingdom recorded the highest level of apparent labour productivity for information services, reaching EUR 138.1 thousand per person employed in 2012; this figure was 2.4 times as high as the national average for the non-financial business economy, the biggest differential among any of the EU Member States. By contrast, Italy, Denmark, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands each reported that apparent labour productivity in the information services sector was lower than the non-financial business economy average.

The highest wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio for information services in 2012 was also registered by the United Kingdom (226.8 %) which was about 25 % higher than the national non-financial business economy average. In fact, the United Kingdom was the only EU Member State (among those for which data are available) to report a higher wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio for information services than the average for the whole of its non-financial business economy. While the remaining Member States recorded relatively low wage-adjusted labour productivity rates for the information services sector in 2012, only two of them recorded a ratio below parity (100 %) — as such, average value added per person employed did not cover average personnel costs per employee. This was the case of Greece and Sweden which reported the wage-adjusted labour productivity ratios of 99.3 % and 93.6 %, respectively.

Based on an analysis of the gross operating rate (which is a measure of gross operating profitability) the information services sector was relatively profitable. This analysis shows that in 2012 the gross operating rate ranged from highs of 43.9 % in Slovakia and 35.3 % in the United Kingdom, to lows of less than 10.0 % in Portugal, Croatia, Sweden and Luxembourg. The latter three countries were the only EU Member States where the level of operating profitability (using this measure) in the information services sector was below the national non-financial business economy average.

Size class analysis

Micro enterprises (employing fewer than 10 persons) accounted for the largest share (36.7 %) of the EU-28’s information services workforce in 2012; this was contrary to the general pattern observed across all information and communication services together, where large enterprises employed the highest proportion (42.2 %) of the workforce. The 113.5 thousand micro enterprises that were active within the EU-28’s information services sector in 2012 employed a total of 187.7 thousand persons — indicating that, on average, these enterprises employed 1.7 persons each.

Large enterprises (employing 250 or more persons) accounted for the second highest share of the information services workforce, at just under a quarter (24.8 %) of the sectoral total in 2012, or 127.1 thousand persons. The remainder of the persons working within the information services sector were split almost equally between small enterprises (employing 10 to 49 persons) and medium-sized enterprises (employing 50 to 249 persons), as they accounted for 18.5 % and 20.0 % of the sectoral workforce respectively.

Large enterprises accounted for more than two fifths (42.5 %) of EU-28 value added within the information services sector in 2012, which was considerably higher than the share of large enterprises in the sectoral workforce. As a result, the apparent labour productivity of large enterprises within the EU-28’s information services sector was EUR 104.8 thousand per person employed, more than triple that recorded for micro enterprises. Medium-sized enterprises also reported apparent labour productivity (EUR 70.1 thousand) that was above the information services sector average, while this productivity ratio fell to a low of EUR 51.2 thousand and 32.1 thousand per person employed for small and micro enterprises, respectively.

In Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Slovenia, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operated without any competition from large enterprises in the information services sector in 2012. SMEs accounted for more than half of the value added generated in Belgium, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Germany, France and Bulgaria. Data are only available for three further EU Member States — Poland, Austria and the United Kingdom — all of them reported that large enterprises had the highest share of sectoral value added. In Poland large enterprises within the information services sector accounted for 50.4 % of sectoral value added, a share that rose to a high of 76.9 % in the United Kingdom.

Data sources and availability

The analysis presented in this article is based on the main dataset for structural business statistics (SBS) and size class data, all of which are published annually.

The main series provides information for each EU Member State as well as a number of non-member countries at a detailed level according to the activity classification NACE. Data are available for a wide range of variables.

In structural business statistics, size classes are generally defined by the number of persons employed. A limited set of the standard structural business statistics variables (for example, the number of enterprises, turnover, persons employed and value added) are analysed by size class, mostly down to the three-digit (group) level of NACE. The main size classes used in this article for presenting the results are:

  • small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): with 1 to 249 persons employed, further divided into;
    • micro enterprises: with less than 10 persons employed;
    • small enterprises: with 10 to 49 persons employed;
    • medium-sized enterprises: with 50 to 249 persons employed;
  • large enterprises: with 250 or more persons employed.

Context

This article presents an overview of statistics for the information services sector in the EU, as covered by NACE Rev. 2 Division 63. This division includes the activities of web search portals, data processing and hosting activities, as well as other activities that primarily supply information.

Data processing, hosting and related activities include the activities of providing infrastructure for hosting, data processing services and related activities. Included are specialised hosting activities such as web hosting, streaming services or application hosting, application service provisioning, and general time-share mainframe facilities to clients. Data processing activities include complete processing and specialised reports from data supplied by clients or providing automated data processing and data entry services including database running activities. The web portals activity includes the operation of websites that use a search engine to generate and maintain extensive databases of internet addresses and content in an easily searchable format. This activity also includes the operation of other websites that act as portals to the internet, such as media sites providing periodically updated content.

Other information service activities include news agency activities, for example, news syndicate and news agency activities furnishing news, pictures and features to the media, as well as other information service activities not elsewhere classified, such as telephone-based information services, information search services on a contract or fee basis, and news and press clipping services.

This NACE division is composed of two groups:

  • data processing, hosting and related activities; web portals (Group 63.1);
  • other information service activities (Group 63.9).

Activities of call centres are excluded (Division 82, part of office administrative, office support and other business support activities).

See also

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Main tables

Database

SBS – services (sbs_serv)
Annual detailed enterprise statistics - services (sbs_na_serv)
Annual detailed enterprise statistics for services (NACE Rev. 2 H-N and S95) (sbs_na_1a_se_r2)
SMEs - Annual enterprise statistics by size classes - services (sbs_sc_sc)
Services by employment size classes (NACE Rev. 2 H-N S95) (sbs_sc_1b_se_r2)
SBS - regional data - all activities (sbs_r)
SBS data by NUTS 2 regions and NACE Rev. 2 (from 2008 onwards) (sbs_r_nuts06_r2)

Dedicated section

Source data for tables and figures (MS Excel)

Other information

External links

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