Slide 1 - Around the globe, the spread of COVID-19 dominated the news in 2020

Slide 2 - The European tech sector outpaces the overall economy …

Slide 3 - … but the US tech sector grew even faster, doubling its gross value added since 2002

Slide 4 - The European tech sector has added 1.6 million jobs since 2009, corresponding to an increase of 54%

Slide 5 - The tech work force in the US has grown at roughly the same pace as in Europe

Slide 6 - On average, European publicly listed internet companies grew their revenues much faster than the average Euro Stoxx 600-member

Slide 7 - The difference is less pronounced in the US, where all companies saw stronger revenue growth when compared to Europe

Slide 1 - The amount of mobile data traffic per smartphone is increasing and accelerating by an ever larger amount

Slide 2 - In Europe, mobile data usage differs widely between different countries

Slide 3 - Given its huge economic potential, a quick and comprehensive rollout of 5G is important to sustain a competitive economy

Slide 5 - A look at international data flows reveals that European countries are reliant on other countries for their domestic internet connectivity

Slide 6 - The same applies to countries in Europe's neighboring regions, looking at Germany

Slide 7 - ... and the United Kingdom

Slide 8 - Data traffic from the US stays within US borders – Yet the US are highly important for the domestic traffic of countries in the region

Slide 9 - China's domestic data flows do not cross its borders – And no other countries route their domestic internet traffic through China

Slide 11 - The market for public cloud services is forecast to continue its growth path…

Slide 12 - Cloud infrastructure services are dominated by market players from the US and China, posing data protection issues

Slide 1 - The US takes the lead regarding patents for digital technologies, China has almost caught up – But Europe lags behind

Slide 2 - But innovation capacity is more than just patents: European countries score high on Bloomberg's Innovation Index

Slide 3 - The innovation top-scorers in Europe align along a North-South axis surrounded by further above average potential

Slide 1 - Europe has no single Silicon Valley – Instead there are many tech clusters spread across the continent

Slide 2 - This geographic diversity manifests itself also in the distribution of major startup clusters and top universities

Slide 3 - Employee stock option programs help startups attract talent, but too few countries in Europe have a supportive regulatory framework

Slide 1 - Based on data by Invest Europe, European companies increasingly attract venture capital investments

Slide 2 - However, highly important later stage investments have grown at a slower pace, constituting one third of all VC investments

Slide 3 - According to CB Insights, VC investments are on the rise across the globe – Yet Europe trails far behind markets in the USA and Asia

Slide 4 - While US and Europe are almost on a par at angel & seed stage, Europe clearly lags behind regarding early and later stage funding

Slide 5 - European startups are increasingly reliant on foreign investment, weakening the network effects of self-sustaining ecosystems

Slide 1 - Large digital platforms are the dominant key players of the internet economy – With huge market shares across the globe

Slide 2 - In Europe and the US, Google and Apple split the market for mobile operating systems among themselves

Slide 3 - The world of social media is to a large extent shaped by Facebook and Google's YouTube

Slide 4 - The market for mobile messenger apps mirrors this pattern. Large digital platforms divide the market among themselves

Slide 5 - Global advertising spending is moving to the digital sphere – Especially spending on mobile advertising has grown enormously

Slide 6 - The digital advertising market is growing by 21% each year – Google and Facebook divide half of the market among themselves

Slide 7 - Digital platforms turn their market shares into economic success – Seven of the ten most valuable companies are digital platforms

Slide 8 - Combined market capitalization of the seven digital platforms is more than twice as high as the total of all Euro Stoxx 50 members

Slide 9 - Platform-based business models have outgrown traditional industry sectors in the last years

Slide 1 - Hot topics 2020 – and beyond?

Slide 1 - COVID-19 will dominate both the news and the economy in the coming months – but we should also keep sight of political and regulatory issues

Slide 1 - Europe must drive the rollout of 5G to harvest the economic benefits of the new technology

Slide 2 - Data portability and interoperability are paramount to secure a competitive and innovative market for cloud computing services

Slide 3 - The EU member states should more strongly align on common standards for startups

Slide 4 - European startups need better access to venture capital and particularly to later stage financing

Slide 5 - European Internet companies must rely on fair competition – rules and regulations must be adapted to the age of digital platforms