Digital trade accounted for one quarter of total trade across the OECD in 2023

New experimental estimates show that digital trade represented one quarter of exports across the OECD in 2023, underscoring the importance of digital technologies in shaping international trade. Up to now, much of the focus has been on digitally delivered trade, but new estimates suggest that digitally ordered trade is equally important.

In 2023, digital trade represented 25.9% of total trade across the OECD, of which 12.7 percentage points corresponded to digitally ordered transactions. This suggests a broadly even split between digitally ordered trade, such as goods and services purchased online, and digitally delivered trade, such as cloud computing and professional services delivered via digital networks.

Digital trade shares varied widely across countries, ranging from 55.2% in 2023 in the United Kingdom to 10.1% in Norway. Sweden (43.6%) and Hungary (34.5%) also ranked among the highest, while Italy (14.1%) and Greece (14.5%) were at the lower end. These new experimental estimates provide the first internationally comparable measures of total digital trade across a broad range of OECD countries.

Although on average digitally ordered and digitally delivered trade accounted for very similar shares of total digital trade, those shares varied markedly across countries. In Canada, the United Kingdom and France, digitally delivered trade plays a prominent role, representing close to or more than 70% of total digital trade. In other countries, including Slovakia and Hungary, digitally ordered transactions dominate digital trade.