Digital technologies have become central to how Australians conduct their daily lives and work. As a growing number of Australian businesses and consumers buy, sell and interact with each other online, tools like Google’s search, advertising, maps and productivity platforms generate significant value for businesses and consumers throughout the nation.
For businesses, such value is experienced in the form of revenue gains, access to new customers and markets, as well as cost and time savings. For consumers, these come in the form of increased convenience, greater productivity in their daily lives, as well as improved access to entertainment and information. Taking into consideration these benefits, this study finds that the annual economic value presented by Google’s services are worth AU$39 billion for Australian businesses, and AU$14 billion for Australian consumers.
The research also finds that an overwhelming 97% of the business benefits are experienced by non-technology sectors, while about 60% goes to small and medium-sized enterprises. By enabling business expansion through the successful use of products such as Google Ads, the company is estimated to support a total number of 116,200 jobs directly (in companies that have used these products), and a further 162,700 indirectly (in the supply chains of these companies) – this is in addition to its employment of 1,800 people in the country.
In addition, Google’s applications help Australians save time. For example, by enabling almost instantaneous access to online information, Google Search is estimated to save Australian consumers almost 5 full days per year on average, versus offline methods of seeking information.
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