Investigating the total factor productivity changes in the top ICT companies worldwide

This study benchmarks the cross-layer productivity of information and communications technologies (ICT) for the period between 1996 and 2015. Our results display that layer 3 companies (platforms, e-commerce, content and software) are the drivers of productivity growth within the ICT industry in the recent years. In contrast, layer 2 companies (network operators) score lower in efficiency than the other layers and experience a continuous decline in average productivity since mid-2000s. We note that, the key financial performance indicators signal a slowdown in the ICT industry since 2011, after when average increase rates of revenues and total assets dropped significantly. The stagnation is severer for network operators, which have been the main investors of the networks on which ICT rises.