German internet industry grows thanks to ecommerce

The German internet industry is still going strong. Annual growth of over 11 percent for 2012 to 2016 is expected, which is quite similar to previous years. Revenues will rise to 87 billion euroes by 2016, which is an increase of 71% within only 5 years. And it’s primarily due to the revenue from ecommerce and online advertising.

Ecommerce and social networks are now the strongest revenue earners of the German internet industry, according to a recent study from the Association of the German Internet Industry, Eco. In the next three years, these internet services will grow annually by more than ten percent each, so their volume will probably reach 41 billion euros by 2016. Ecommerce alone will be about 28,4 billion euros. “With around 21.7 billion euros, this portion of the industry is already responsible for more than two thirds of the total revenues from end-customer oriented services.”

According to Eco, the segments in layer 3 (‘Aggregation & Transactions) experienced a particularly marked growth spurt after the economic crisis. “Overall, a clear upward trend can be seen for the near future in the development of the layer Aggregation & Transactions, even though the growth percentage has reduced slightly since 2011. This number will stay around the 10 percent mark in the coming years.” If we look at the report, we also see that average market volume for digital payment in Germany is growing by 15.4 percent annually, while the online advertising market will grow 11 percent annually.