Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 20, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Revenue among German Internet and multimedia service providers grew by an average of 15.9 percent in 2006. The number of permanent employees also rose significantly, by 17.4 percent. These result are reached by the New Media Service Ranking 2007, which the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW), Hightext iBusiness and the specialist magazines Horizont and Werben & Verkaufen have presented. As in the previous year, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions, Sapient and Pixelpark are at the top of the ranking.
According to the BDW, Internet and multimedia service providers have also benefited in recent months from the positive development in the fields of online advertising and e-commerce. Growth was particularly strong among the top-ranked companies in the New Media Service Ranking, which has been compiled since 2000: Thus, revenue growth among the top 30, at 19.7 percent, is once again significantly above growth in the industry as a whole. Because of the strong growth, the association speaks of a worsening labor market situation in the digital economy: In 2006 alone, employee figures at the ranking’s top 30 companies grew by 25.1 percent, and for 2007 the BDW expects this trend to continue.
“Despite massive staff increases last year, many agencies repeatedly reach their capacity limits,” explains Marco Zingler (denkwerk), chairman of the Agencies specialist group. In fact, the surveyed service providers also plan to increase their permanent employment relationships by a further 18.4 percent in 2007 (top 30 companies: 19.8 percent). This assumes average revenue growth of 22.1 percent (top 30: 20.4 percent).
Overall, the surveyed service providers paint an entirely positive picture of the industry’s overall development. “The figures were already quite positive in the previous year’s survey,” states BVDW market researcher Christiane Frank: “The fact that percentage employee growth is higher than revenue growth makes it clear that there was already catching up to do here in 2006. That is unlikely to ease in the current year.”
In the current ranking, there are hardly any changes among the top ten compared with the previous year. Alongside the three leading agencies, I-D Media also defended its position in 4th place, and the same applies to the Plan.Net Group in 7th place. Syzygy Deutschland GmbH (from 6 to 5) and SinnerSchrader AG swapped places, as did dmc digital media center GmbH (from 9 to 8) and Elephant Seven AG. The only newcomer is jaron.direct GmbH in 10th place.
The biggest climbers among the top 50 service providers are MP Newmedia GmbH, which advanced from 52nd place to position 33, and the BlueMars agency, which rose from 64th place to 48th. The highest newcomer in the top 50 is Atkon AG in 13th place, which did not participate the previous year but had already finished in 9th place once in 2005. The situation is similar for Tomorrow Focus Technologies GmbH in position 21, which had not participated in the past two years after ranking third among service companies in NMSR 2004.
The BVDW plans to publish a long-term study shortly that provides details on the labor market situation, technological developments and business models in the industry.
