The digital economy in Poland grew by 18.4 percent in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions, which is 2.5 times faster than the average growth in the years 2017-2019, according to a report by McKinsey analysts.

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In 2019, the digital economy in Poland grew by 7.2 percent, reaching a value of EUR 32.7 bn, according to the report titled “Digital Challengers in the next normal: Central and Eastern Europe on a path to digitally-led growth in 2017-2019.”

In the period from January to May 2020, this growth was 2.5 times higher than in the previous two years, McKinsey experts wrote.

Due to the development potential of this sector of the economy, the report includes Poland in the group of Digital Challengers, which also includes Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia. Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In the CEE region, in 2017-2019, the digital economy grew at a rate of almost 8 percent annually, reaching EUR 94 bn in 2019. This is EUR 2 billion more than in the baseline scenario assumed by the authors of the report.

Poland was responsible for a quarter of this surplus. The first five months of 2020 saw the region’s digital economy grow by over 14 percent, representing 78 percent, or EUR 5.3 bn, of the growth recorded for the full year 2019.

The analysis of digital sentiment during the pandemic included in the report showed that the number of Poles who have used at least one internet service has increased from 66 percent to 78 percent since the beginning of the pandemic.

source: PAP