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Services rise in New Zealand ICT sector

Xinhua, April 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

New Zealand's information and communication technology (ICT) sector is shifting from a predominantly goods-based sector to services, the government statistics agency said Thursday.

The ICT sector had sales worth 23.5 billion NZ dollars (17.51 billion U.S. dollars) last year, an increase of three percent since 2012, according to Statistics New Zealand.

"Sales by the ICT sector are the equivalent of around 10 percent of GDP," business performance manager Jason Attewell said in a statement.

"While sales of ICT goods are generally falling, we are seeing strong growth in software and ICT services."

Services pushed the rise in total sales, with information technology services leading the way.

Trade data showed that imports of cellphones had been steadily increasing, from 350 million NZ dollars (260.74 million U.S. dollars) in 2011 to almost 600 million NZ dollars (446.99 million U.S. dollars) last year.

"The smartphone revolution is not only about more people buying smartphones, but also about them using these devices to run more of their day-to-day business and life," Attewell said.

"Sales are increasing, and the ways in which phones are being used are changing, with more people on data plans and the data plans being larger." Endi