Classroom Companion: Business

1.4 · Digital Economics

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1.5 
 Conclusions
In 2020, seven of the ten largest corporations by market capitalization are in the digi-
tal economy business. Moreover, Apple is now about four times bigger than the cor-
poration that is number eight in the list. Ten years ago, there were only two companies 
in the digital economy among the ten largest corporations (Apple and Microsoft).
The evolution in favor of businesses in the digital economy is a result of the 
digitization of society: by 2020, almost all communication infrastructure world-
wide is digital, and almost all data is available in digital formats.
The companies in the digital economy comprise several industrial sectors, for 
example:
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Information and content producers and providers (e.g., newspapers, television 
channels, bloggers, YouTube, Netflix)
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Social media providers (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
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Manufacturers of devices and software (Microsoft, Apple)
5
Operators of fixed and mobile network infrastructure (Internet and mobile net-
work providers, Starlink)
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Electronic payment services and banking (PayPal, Bitcoin minters)
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E-commerce (eBay, Amazon)
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Sharing service providers (Uber, Airbnb)
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Cloud computing
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Multiplayer interactive game providers
The digital economy has created new business opportunities that did not exist 
before as is evident from the list.
 
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Questions
1. Name the ten largest companies in the world by market capitalization. Which 
of them are in the digital economy?
2. How large share of the world population has access to the Internet?
3. Does everyone in the world have access to mobile telephony?
4. How will digitization of the economy impact the country you live in? Search 
the web for news articles (two or three articles are sufficient), and discuss how 
digitization influences the economy, the public sector, and business domains.