Digital activity in the Australian economy, 2018-19

This article provides an update on the size, growth and nature of digital activity in Australia for 2018-19.

Released

29/01/2021

Source

Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables, 2018-19 financial year

Introduction

This article provides an update on the size, growth and nature of digital activity in Australia for 2018-19. These experimental estimates incorporate data from the most recent 2018-19 Supply and Use tables.

The ABS measures digital activity in Australia as the production of:

Digital enabling infrastructure, such as computer hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and support services that form and facilitate the use of computer networks;
Digital media, which covers digital audio, video and advertisement broadcasting services that can be created, accessed, stored or viewed on digital devices; and
E-commerce, which incorporate retail and wholesale services and margins from digitally ordered or platform enabled online transactions.

This article supplements the previous Digital activity in the Australian economy article which provides analysis of experimental data back to 2011-12.

More details on the ABS digital activity framework are covered in the Chief Economist Series.

Digital activity share of the Australian economy

Digital activity value added increased by 1.9% ($1.8 billion) however the digital activity share in the Australian economy reduced by 0.2% due to strong growth in non-digital activities, such as Mining. In 2018-19, digital activity accounted for 5.5% ($101.0 billion) of aggregate value added ($1,826.4 billion), compared to 5.8% ($99.2 billion) in 2017-18 (Graph 1).

Graph 1 - Digital activity value added ($m) and share in aggregate value added (%), 2016-17 to 2018-19, current prices
	Share of Aggregate Value Added (%)	Digital Activity Value Added ($m)
2016-17	5.68	93,262
2017-18	5.75	99,196
2018-19	5.53	101,042

Graph 1 - Digital activity value added ($m) and share in aggregate value added (%), 2016-17 to 2018-19, current prices

["","Share of Aggregate Value Added","Digital Activity Value Added"]

[["2016-17","2017-18","2018-19"],[[5.6799999999999997],[5.75],[5.5300000000000002]],[[93262],[99196],[101042]]]

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In 2018-19, the digital activity share of aggregate value added was higher than 12 industry divisions, but below traditional economic drivers such as Mining (10.6%), Finance (9.0%), Construction (7.9%) and Health (7.6%) (Graph 2).

Mining has the largest share in aggregate value added in the Australian economy. Mining aggregate value added increased by 27.7% ($41.9 billion) in 2018-19, increasing its share of the Australian economy by 1.8%.

Graph 2 - Industry share in aggregate value added (%), digital activity embedded, 2018-19, current prices
	Industry (%)	Digital activity (%)
B Mining	10.57
K Financial and Insurance Services	8.99
Ownership of Dwellings	8.71
E Construction	7.90
Q Health Care and Social Assistance	7.56
M Professional, Scientific and Technical Services	7.30
C Manufacturing	6.03
O Public Administration and Safety	5.57
Digital economy		5.53
P Education and Training	5.04
I Transport, Postal and Warehousing	4.90
G Retail Trade	4.36
F Wholesale Trade	3.93
N Administrative and Support Services	3.65
L Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services	3.07
D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2.63
H Accommodation and Food Services	2.43
J Information, Media and Telecommunications	2.36
A Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing	2.27
S Other Services	1.87
R Arts and Recreation Services	0.86

Graph 2 - Industry share in aggregate value added (%), digital activity embedded, 2018-19, current prices

["","Industry","Digital activity"]

[["B Mining","K Financial and Insurance Services","Ownership of Dwellings","E Construction","Q Health Care and Social Assistance","M Professional, Scientific and Technical Services","C Manufacturing","O Public Administration and Safety","Digital economy","P Education and Training","I Transport, Postal and Warehousing","G Retail Trade","F Wholesale Trade","N Administrative and Support Services","L Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services","D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services","H Accommodation and Food Services","J Information, Media and Telecommunications","A Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing","S Other Services","R Arts and Recreation Services"],[[10.57],[8.9900000000000002],[8.7100000000000009],[7.9000000000000004],[7.5599999999999996],[7.2999999999999998],[6.0300000000000002],[5.5700000000000003],[null],[5.04],[4.9000000000000004],[4.3600000000000003],[3.9300000000000002],[3.6499999999999999],[3.0699999999999998],[2.6299999999999999],[2.4300000000000002],[2.3599999999999999],[2.27],[1.8700000000000001],[0.85999999999999999]],[[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[5.5300000000000002],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null]]]

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The production of the digital products has not been removed from the existing industries for which it is partially embedded. Therefore, the shares add to more than 100% of aggregate value added.

Composition of digital activity in the Australian economy

Within digital activity, the share in production was dominated by demand for Support services (43.8%), Telecommunications (23.7%) and Wholesale e-commerce (17.8%) (Graph 3).

In 2018-19, the Support services share of total digital activity value added increased by 0.7% and the Telecommunications share of total digital activity value added decreased by 1.2%.

Graph 3 - Share in total digital activity value added (%), 2016-17 to 2018-19, current prices
	Hardware (%)	Software (%)	E-commerce - Retail (%)	Digital media (%)	E-commerce - Wholesale (%)	Telecommunications (%)	Support services (%)
2016-17	2.00	3.11	3.72	7.04	17.00	25.72	41.41
2017-18	1.75	3.15	4.02	6.75	17.70	24.51	42.12
2018-19	1.82	2.93	4.12	5.80	17.83	23.68	43.82

Graph 3 - Share in total digital activity value added (%), 2016-17 to 2018-19, current prices

["","Hardware","Software","E-commerce - Retail","Digital media","E-commerce - Wholesale","Telecommunications","Support services"]

[["2016-17","2017-18","2018-19"],[[2],[1.75],[1.8200000000000001]],[[3.1099999999999999],[3.1499999999999999],[2.9300000000000002]],[[3.7200000000000002],[4.0199999999999996],[4.1200000000000001]],[[7.04],[6.75],[5.7999999999999998]],[[17],[17.699999999999999],[17.829999999999998]],[[25.719999999999999],[24.510000000000002],[23.68]],[[41.409999999999997],[42.119999999999997],[43.82]]]

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Digital activity growth

In 2018-19, digital activity expanded by 1.9% in current price terms, below aggregate value added growth for the total economy (5.9%) (Graph 4).

Within digital activity, the largest increases were in Hardware (6.4%) and Support services (6.0%), which experienced similar growth to the total economy.

Growth in Support services continues to be driven by demand for both computer systems design related services and data processing storage services.

Digital media showed a reduction of 12.5% driven by a decrease in free to air radio and tv broadcasting services, which was partially offset by an increase in internet publishing and broadcasting services.

Graph 4 - Annual value added growth (%), digital activity vs. total economy, 2018-19, current prices
	Digitalised activities (%)	Total Economy (%)	Total digitalised activity (%)
Total Economy		5.93
Digitalised economy			1.86
Hardware	6.41
Support services	5.96
E-commerce - Retail	4.45
E-commerce - Wholesale	2.58
Telecommunications	-1.58
Software	-5.18
Digital media	-12.53

Graph 4 - Annual value added growth (%), digital activity vs. total economy, 2018-19, current prices

["","Digitalised activities","Total Economy","Total digitalised activity"]

[["Total Economy","Digitalised economy","Hardware","Support services","E-commerce - Retail","E-commerce - Wholesale","Telecommunications","Software","Digital media"],[[null],[null],[6.41125437],[5.9564677259999996],[4.4477862909999999],[2.5785087579999999],[-1.577720725],[-5.1759854199999999],[-12.5335961]],[[5.9311712009999997],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null]],[[null],[1.860366822],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null],[null]]]

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APA

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