Business

The ICT sector in accelerated expansion

Denmark and Sweden are continuously being considered the world's top of networked readiness. This is once again supported by the World Economic Forum's report "The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009" (http://www.weforum.org/en) which this time focuses on mobility in a networked world - demonstrated to the point in the Øresund Region. The Øresund IT cluster had 100,000 employees, 12,000 IT-companies and total turnover of approximately 22.5 billion euro in 2000.

Commerce companies, including those within wholesale and retail, constitute the largest IT sector the Øresund Region measured by the number of employees. In 2000, they employed more than 40,000 people in the region. Most companies in this sector are international or local firms that import and resell computing equipment to the retailing segment or to professional users in Denmark, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. An example of such company is Dell Computers Denmark, which employs 200 people in Copenhagen.

Consultancies, which include software and data processing firms, are the second largest IT sector in the region, employing more than 36,000 people in 2000. An example of a firm within this category is the Malmö-based Academedia, a company with more than 100 employees that develops software and electronic education and training services.

The two other sectors, telecom and IT-industry, employed, respectively, 15,000 and 12,000 people. TDC, 3 and Telia are telecom companies operating in the region, while OFS Fitel, which produces optical fibres, represents the manufacturing business.