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Press release 15/07/2015

INFORMATION SOCIETY SURVEY. COMPANIES. Year 2014

E-commerce continued to grow in 2014 in the Basque Country both in terms of the number of participating companies and sales figures

24.8% of Basque companies carried out e-commerce, which is 3.2 percentage points more than in the previous year, and sales increased by 9.5%

E-commerce in the Basque Country is continuing to grow, both in terms of sales figures in Euros and in terms of the percentage of participating companies, according to data provided by Eustat. Thus, 24.8% of companies carried out e-commerce in 2014, 3.2 percentage points more than in the previous year. The volume of business generated over the Internet or via other electronic systems such as email and electronic data interchange (EDI and other networks) rose to 12,124.6 million euros in terms of electronic sales and 9,326.1 million euros in terms of purchases.

Compared to the year before, these figures show increases of 9.5% in e-commerce sales by companies in the Basque Country and 15.3% in those relating to purchases made using the same system.

By province, all three had a very similar figure for electronic sales, with Bizkaia representing the highest percentage with 36.4% of the Autonomous Region, while Gipuzkoa (32.2%) and Álava (31.4%) took a roughly equal share. In relation to purchases, however, Bizkaia accounted for 51.2% of the total in 2014, whereas Gipuzkoa represented 31.9%, and Álava kept 16.9% of the electronic purchases in the Basque Country overall.

Álava stood out for being the province where electronic purchases grew the most in 2014, by 18%, and it was also the only province where sales increased less, by 7%. Bizkaia, for its part, saw the largest growth in sales, 11.2%, and a growth in purchases, with 13.6%. Gipuzkoa remained second in terms of sales with a growth of 16.6%, and in terms of electronic sales, which went up by 10.1%.

Taking into account the size of the establishments, it is the establishments with 10 or more employees in which larger sums of money are traded in e-commerce, with 82.1% of sales and 67.7% of total purchases.

Regarding the percentage of companies in the Basque Country that deal in e-commerce, these increased by 3.2 percentage points in 2014 and currently represent 24.8%. This proportion is mainly due to the companies that made purchases, 23.1% and to a lesser degree those that made sales, 6%.

It is also apparent that, even though the electronic sales figures greatly exceed those for purchases, the number of companies purchasing electronically (23.1%) greatly exceeds those that sell using the same method, which make up 6%.

The number of companies carrying out e-commerce in the Basque Country is calculated to be around 40,700. In these, it is estimated that purchases made via this method are 30.6% of their total purchases and sales are 38.9% of their total sales.

These figures vary if company size is taken into account. Thus, amongst those with 10 or more employees, 28.8% carried out e-commerce, 1.3 percentage points more with respect to the previous year. Also in this segment, the number of companies making electronic purchases was much higher, standing at 25%, whereas those making sales through the same channels were lower in number, 10.8%, following increases of 1.6 and 0.8 percentage points this year, respectively.

With regards to the means by which electronic purchases were made, 43.6% were made by email, 34.3% by EDI and other networks and the remaining 22.2% using websites. On the other hand, 41.4% of e-sales were made by EDI and other networks, 35.3% by email and 23.3% using websites.

With regards to the type of client to which e-commerce sales were destined in 2014, a large majority, 85.7% of the total e-sales, were destined for other companies (so-called B2B trade), 13.6% were for private consumers (B2C) and the remaining 0.6% was spread over other destinations, such as Public Administrations (B2G).