A similar start-up in Europe has to translate its website into many languages which is costly. A Chinese start-up can reach many of the 1.3bn Chinese with a Mandarin website and does not face internal barriers. A US start-up can reach all 300m US Americans with a website or app only in English. Digital businesses are exposed to many barriers that prevent them from reaching all 500 million people in the EU. One reason for this is that the market for digital businesses in Europe is still very much fragmented. Skype is an example of a European firm that managed to do this – but few others managed to survive with American competition. In order to capture this natural monopoly, it is important to reach as many customers as possible and faster than potential competitors. Hence, in many cases of digital businesses, market leaders obtain a natural monopoly. But as soon as Skype became widely distributed, it developed a great utility for its customers.
The first customers of Skype did not have many other people to interact with. The utility of a certain digital service – say Skype – increases with the number of people using it. In addition, many digital business models are network based.
Therefore, it is an important prerequisite for successful digital businesses that they can reach many customers quickly. Hence the operating costs of a firm rise much slower than revenue. An internet platform currently serving 1,000 customers could easily serve 100,000 customers – all that is needed is a little more computing power and potentially logistics, if the platform involves handling physical goods. Since the price for crops needs to cover for the price of the tractor, the large farm will be able to sell its produce cheaper than the small farm.Įconomies of scale are particularly present in the digital economy. Hence, with the same machinery, the large farm can produce double the output because it is more intensely used. Take the example of two farms, a large one and a small one: Suppose that on the small farm a tractor can work all the fields in two days while on the large farm it takes four days. The idea is simple: In many cases larger firms can produce more efficiently than small firms. Let’s go through the impediments to the digital economy first: One of the first concepts economics students are introduced is the “economies of scale”.
But which are these boundaries? What is holding the digital economy back in Europe? What needs to be done to free the potential? This blogpost aims at answering these question and examines to what extent the Digital Single Market Strategy of the European Commission responds to these challenges. €415bn is the estimate of the European Commission by how much the EU’s GDP would increase if the boundaries to digital trade between the member states were eliminated. Or just a little less than four (!) times the estimated GDP increase in the EU through TTIP. It’s roughly equivalent to the GDP of Poland. Why we need a Single Market for the Digital Economy But does it do enough? This blogpost reviews what has been achieved and what still needs to be done. The Digital Single Market Strategy addresses some of these issues. The reason for this is not a lack of business ideas in the digital economy, the reason is that the current institutional and technical environment is not as conducive to growth as it should be. Europe is lagging behind in the digital economy.