In its latest analysis, the digital association Bitkom looks at the state of the German digital economy. Compared to the economy as a whole, it shows a high level of stability in the face of inflation and the energy crisis.
Overall, sales in the ICT sector in Germany are expected to increase by 3.8% in 2023. This means that turnover generated in the digital sector will exceed 200 billion euros for the first time. By contrast, the German digital sector’s share of the global market will decline slightly. Global sales are expected to increase by 4.8% to 4.33 trillion euros. With a global market share of 4.2%, Germany is therefore only in fifth place behind the USA (35.7%), China (11.7%), Japan (5.7%) and the UK (4.5%).
Bitkom expects the greatest growth in the German digital sector for companies in the information technology sector (6.3% to 126.4 billion euros). Turnover in the software sector will increase the most with a plus of 9.3% to a total of 38.8 billion euros. Exceptionally good business expectations can be seen in the area of platforms for artificial intelligence (41.8% to 1.1 billion euros). In the hardware sector, business expectations are slightly lower at 5.3% to 39.7 billion euros, with the largest increases in turnover expected for wearables in particular (15.3% to 3.4 billion euros). The IT services sector is growing at a stable rate of 4.7% to 47.8 billion euros.
In contrast to the IT sector, growth in the telecommunications sector is stagnating (0.8% to 69.5 billion euros). In the consumer electronics sector, sales even fell by 7.3% to 7.6 billion euros.
