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Post written by:

Vincent Bonneau

IDATE Lab. Business Unit Director

COVID-19’s impact on the digital sector will only be temporary, albeit to varying degrees depending on the business models and the sectors of activity

This IDATE DigiWorld report explores how telecommunications and Internet services have been affected by the biggest economic and financial crises of recent times – from the Internet bubble for the telecoms sector and the subprime loan crisis for the Internet services sector – as well as the European debt crisis and, of course, the still ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Each crisis has played out in a very different way: the telecoms sector weathered the COVID-19 crisis fairly well, for instance, but suffered a real setback during recent economic crises such as the European sovereign debt crisis. On the flipside, ad-funded online services (including for giants like Google) have been hit hard by COVID-19 but remained relatively unscathed by earlier crises.

GDP growth and telecoms revenue from 2011 to 2015
Steady decline in telecoms revenue following the European debt crises

The report seeks to draw a distinction between structural changes and the direct impact that these crises have had on markets:

  • Fixed calling, fixed Internet access and mobile services for the telecoms side of the equation;
  • Online advertising (search and display), e-commerce and cloud computing (only at the regional level for the latter) for the Internet services side;
  • Each of the major global markets (USA, China, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK) and the different regions.

This qualitative analysis includes quantified historic data for the different countries, from 2000 to 2019 (2008 to 2019 for Internet services) and forecasts for 2020 to 2024 (highlighting pre- and post-COVID forecasts).

For more information on this report, see detailed online presentation or contact us.