Understanding the size of the global space economy is important to its constituents. Organizations that publish credible data on a regular basis cited by many, include Euroconsult, Bryce, the Space Foundation and others.
Recently Nathan de Ruiter. Managing Director, Euroconsult North America presented the “New Space Economy: The Trillion-Dollar Question” at the virtual Canadian Space Summit. In it he stated that by Euroconsult numbers the global space economy for their 2019 report was pegged at US$298B (CDN$373B). Note, the data is for the calendar year 2018. Their 2020 report with data from 2019 will be published soon.
Nathan’s presentation is now available to watch below. It’s a good synopsis of the global space economy. But how do Euroconsult’s numbers stack up with others?
Watch the New Space Economy: The Trillion-Dollar Question
While we don’t have the Euroconsult estimate yet for 2019, we do know that the Space Foundation had the global space economy at US$423.8B and Bryce had it at US$366B for 2019. Clearly when the Euroconsult estimate is available for the 2019 calendar year, it will be substantially less than all the other reports.
pwc chimes in
Now, a new report from pwc, available below, has their own estimate of US$371B. Importantly, they outline why differences in reporting happen, stating “sizing the global space economy is a complex exercise due to the lack of a unified taxonomy and difficulties in setting up boundaries.”
“Space is not recognised as a category in international standards of industrial classification. Therefore, worldwide market sizing studies differ in definition, coverage and methodology. This makes it difficult to compare the results in global estimates.”
“The boundaries between space and non-space activities are often blurred, leading to different ways of assessing the overall space economy. This is specifically critical when setting the boundary between the downstream space industry and end-user economy: as the analysis moves down the value chain, the assessment of the direct causal relationship (called paternity) between the space industry and the benefits brought to end-users become complex to isolate and accurately measured. Indeed, benefits derived from space tend to only represent a tiny part of the value created for end-users.”
A couple of notes on market estimate numbers. Euroconsult numbers are for the calendar year 2018. The Space Foundation, Bryce and pwc numbers are all for the 2019 calendar year.
All of this is to say, that until, if ever, there are some standards for space data such as this, everything you read should be clearly emphasized as an estimate.
Good article. Would be useful to compare global and Canadian space economy. If I recall CSA estimated that space utilization contributes $2.5B Canada’s GDP.