Industry overview
The Information service activities sector across EU27 average comprises approximately 124,355 enterprises employing about – people and generating €70.4 bn in net turnover in 2014. The average enterprise size is – employees per firm. This is a useful yardstick when assessing whether your own operation sits within the typical scale band of the sector.
Profitability
With a healthy operating margin of 13.5% of revenue in 2014, the sector reports €9.5 bn of gross operating surplus (Eurostat's EBITDA-equivalent, before depreciation). This figure provides the headline benchmark against which an individual operator can sanity-check their own bottom line, values significantly below indicate cost or pricing pressure, those above suggest competitive advantage worth defending.
Cost structure
The Information service activities cost mix is reasonably balanced: cost of revenue at 65.4%, personnel at 22.6% and energy at – of turnover. Without a single dominant cost driver, margin management requires attention across the full operating envelope rather than focus on any one line.
Trend & trajectory
Over the period 2012 to 2014 the operating margin moved from 12.5% to 13.5% (+1.0 percentage points), an encouraging upward trajectory. Sectors with stable or improving margins tend to reflect successful pass-through of input costs and disciplined capacity management; declining margins typically point to either over-supply or a structural cost squeeze that warrants strategic review.