Germany is often referred to as the land of cars, at least for now. Yet a look at current economic value creation shows that the balance of power has long since shifted. The digital economy is now significantly larger than the automotive industry and has developed into one of Germany's most important economic factors.

According to a recent study by the German Association for Digital Economy (BVDW) and the Mannheim research institute ISTARI.AI, the German digital economy generates around 481.5 billion euros in gross value added annually. This corresponds to 11.91 percent of total German economic performance. Thus, nearly every eighth euro of German gross value added now comes from the digital economy.

For comparison: The automotive industry accounts for a share of about 4.5 to 5 percent of German gross value added. The digital economy is therefore more than twice as large as the traditional automotive industry.

The development becomes particularly interesting when digitization is not limited to traditional technology companies. Because digital value creation is created today in practically all sectors. Companies from industry, trade, finance or services use digital technologies and have accordingly changed their business models.

Since the study therefore also includes companies from traditional sectors whose value creation is already strongly shaped by digitization, it comes to an impressive magnitude of over one trillion euros. Concretely, the digitally shaped value creation is over 1.01 trillion euros. Thus, more than a quarter of total German gross value creation is already digitally shaped.

The numbers show above all one thing: Digitization is no longer a niche of its own in the economy. It runs through almost all sectors and changes where and how value is created in Germany. A company therefore does not have to be a classic software or technology corporation to be part of the digital economy.

Exactly here lies the peculiarity of the new study. Classic statistics assign companies to fixed sectors. A digitally working company can therefore still appear, for example, as an industrial, trading or financial company, even though a large part of its value creation is now based on digital business models, data and technologies. The study therefore tries to focus more on the actual business activity of the companies.

The result changes the view of the German economy. While the importance of the automotive industry is frequently discussed, the study shows that digitization plays an even greater economic role. And it is not just about large technology corporations or start-ups. Digitization is now a cross-cutting topic that covers almost the entire economy.

This is an important development for Germany. The strength of the German economy will no longer depend solely on how many cars, machines or other industrial goods are produced. Equally decisive will be how successfully companies use data, software, artificial intelligence and other digital technologies.