Accounting figures for joint stock companies in the information sector, 2002

The information sector had operating income of NOK 228.7 billion in 2002. This corresponded to 9.9 per cent of the operating income in all non-financial joint stock companies. Operating income within the ICT sector was NOK 185.2 billion, while operating income within the content sector was NOK 43.4 billion. While the ICT sector has struggled with negative operating profit for the last tree years, the content sector has delivered positive operating profit in the period 1998-2002. The last two years has shown a decrease for this sector as well, and the operating profit for 2001 and 2002 was considerably lower than in 2000.

Low operating profit margin in the information sector

Operating profit margin for all joint-stock companies, except from the oil- and gas industry, approximated 4.1 per cent in 2002. Operating profit margin for the joint-stock companies within the ICT sector and content sector were -2.9 and 3.4 per cent respectively. Companies in the publishing industry recorded the largest operating profit margin of 7.2 per cent. The operating profit margin shows the ratio between operating profit and operating income in per cent.

Return on equity capital beyond average within the content sector

Except from the oil and gas industry all joint stock companies recorded a return on equity capital of 3.2 per cent in 2002. While the companies in the ICT sector had a negative return on equity capital of 22.2 per cent, the companies within content sector had a positive return on equity of 7.7 per cent. Among the industries in the content sector, the publishing industry registered the largest return on equity capital at 11.9 per cent. Return on equity is calculated as operating result in per cent of total equity and shows the yield on equity.

Delimitation of the content sector

For the first time, statistics for a collected information sector existing of the ICT sector and Information sector is published. Since an international delimitation of the content sector not exist the statistics for the content sector is based on a national delimitation. The foundation for the definitions are, however, copied from notes published by UN and OECD. Read more about this in "about the statistics".

Tables:

• Table 1 Number of joint-stock companies
• Table 2 Operating income in NOK million
• Table 3 Operating expenses in NOK million
• Table 4 Operating profit in million NOK
• Table 5 Operating profit margin in per cent
• Table 6 Operating margin in per cent
• Table 7 Return on total assets in per cent
• Table 8 Return on equity in per cent
• Table 9 Circulation rate on total assets
• Table 10 Equity ratio in per cent
• Table 11 Current ratio