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Telecom . IT: Report: Romania's digital economy could grow 3.5 times, to approximately 52 billion euros in 2030
Romania's digital economy could grow 3.5 times, to approximately 52 billion euros in 2030, compared to 14.8 billion euros last year, reveals the "Digital Challengers on the Next Frontier" Report, drawn up by McKinsey & Company.
Currently, Romania is the third market as a digital economy among the ten Digital Challengers countries, after Poland (44 billion euros) and the Czech Republic (18 billion euros). In this context, the value is divided between digital commerce (9.8 billion euros), spending on IT&C (3.5 billion euros) and offline spending on digital products - 1.6 billion euros.
According to the cited source, digital trade means 66% of Romania's digital economy, and IT&C can become the main engine of growth by 2030.
With an estimated value of 52 billion euros in 2030, Romania's digital economy could account for approximately 9.6% of GDP, given that in 2021, digital trade per capita was 506 euros, below the region's average.
The specialized report shows that Romania's digital economy was estimated at 14.8 billion euros in 2021 (approximately 6% of GDP), while investments in IT&C registered an annual increase of 8%, between 2017 - 2021, up to 3.5 billion euros.
The development of the digital economy can also be observed from the perspective of SMEs that sell online, their percentage going up from 7% in 2017 to 17% in 2021.
In the reference period, Romania is the second largest digital commerce market in the CEE, standing at 9.8 billion euros. However, the average expenditure per capita for e-commerce and its penetration rate are among the lowest in the region.
As regards the coverage rate, the digital segment in Romania accounts for only 14% of the total retail market (68.9 billion euros), the rest being represented by offline trade (59.1 billion euros).
Currently, the largest e-commerce categories in Romania are: home and electronic products (39% of digital commerce), transport services (31%) and the fashion segment (14%). On the other hand, during the pandemic, the category with the highest growth was that of food products, at a value of 389 million euros, from 123 million euros in 2019.