B2C Online-Market

Already in 2014, Statista and LSP had already mapped the German B2C market for digital services and goods. This year, we at LSP elected to publish a new edition, again in collaboration with Statista. This report lists the sales and sales developments of the 1000 leading digital companies in Germany, divided into three segments with a total of 33 sub-segments. This will provide with a quick and comprehensive overview of specific market and company developments that are relevant to you.

“LSP, together with their sister company Statista, has made it their mission to be able to qualitatively and quantitively define and analyze markets, as well as to understand them as a whole.”

Methodology

The market analysis presents essential elements of the B2C online market’s net added value, which are grouped into three segments: digital content, digital goods, and digital services. A total of 1500 websites, in combination with their respective mobile applications, were reviewed according to their relevance for this study. Here, relevance was determined by total revenue and total traffic throughout 2017, which reduced the total number of websites to 1000. Please note that revenue figures were approximated through research and modeling on the basis of segment-specific key performance indicators.

“The result is a ranking of the 1000 leading providers in the B2C field in 2017.”

As this study focuses only on websites, traditional e-commerce providers, suppliers, telecommunication service providers, finance providers, medical insurance providers, and crowdfunding platforms were not included. Business models, which are almost completely based on mobile applications, were also excluded.

Insights

On the whole, it is not surprising that the market has undergone momentous change. 20% of companies included in the 2014 ranking no longer exist as independent entities in 2017. The net revenues of the providers recorded amounted to a total of €17.9 billion in 2017 (2013: €8.5 billion). Among the three segments, digital services is the most profitable (€13.8 billion), followed by digital goods (€ 2.9 billion), and digital content (€1.2 billion).

On average, these three market segments have experienced a 20% growth rate since 2013. Digital goods reflected the highest growth rate of roughly 24% per year, while digital content grew only by 7%.

“The German market is significantly influenced by U.S. companies.”

Unfortunately, it is also not surprising that only a few German companies are to be found at the top of the sales rankings. 80% of the top 10 revenues and 38% of total revenue was generated by international companies. Markets that have emerged or grown in recent years saw proportionally higher revenues go to international, rather than domestic, companies. 

Among the top 11 to top 20 providers, 51% of total revenue and number of companies are domestic. The 51% of German providers mostly follow a marketplace business model. 

LSP Digital would like to thank each of the company representatives for providing support in data acquisition. Furthermore, we would like to express our appreciation to the industry representatives for their valuable insights, which we have additionally integrated into the assessment. And of course, we would like to extend our thanks to our sister company, Statista, for their consistently excellent collaboration.