A new report has identified the UK as benefitting the most from the internet as a proportion of the country’s overall economy than any other member of the G20.
The report, by the Boston Consulting Group (BGC), reveals that in 2010 the internet contributed £121 billion to the economy of the UK; a figure which amounts to 8.3% of the total economy, or £2,000 for each member of the population.
This proportion is larger than that for the UK construction, healthcare or education sectors, the report reveals; and is higher than the proportion for any other economy in the G20.
The BGC report predicts that the ‘internet economy’ will continue to grow at a magnitude of 11% per annum until 2016, when it will be worth 221 billion.
Comparable annual growth figures, predicted by the report for the US and China, stand at just 5.4% and 6.9% respectively.
Whilst the report emphasises the significant part played by online retail activity in helping to boost the UK’s internet economy, many businesses have also of course played an increasingly active part through utilising internet-based services as part of their everyday dealings.
Separate studies have shown, for example, that the take-up among small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) of added value internet-dependent services such as internet protocol (IP) telephony and business VoIP (voice over internet protocol), has soared over the past few years.
Such services largely owe their success to the enhanced performance, increased administrative control, and cost benefits they usually offer businesses over traditional telephone and ISDN lines.
The good news of course is that industries partly dependent on such increased internet-based activity are also likely to flourish if the internet economy grows as predicted.
Other studies, for example, have predicted strong growth in the market for IP telephony enabling facilities, such as those offering session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking.
