11th edition of ASEDIE's Infomediary Sector Report available
Fecha de la noticia: 13-04-2023

The Asociación Multisectorial de la Información (ASEDIE) has published the eleventh edition of its Report on the Infomediary Sector, in which it reviews the health of companies that generate applications, products and/or services based on information from the public sector, taking into account that it is the holder of the most valuable data.
Many of the datasets that enable the infomediary sector to develop solutions are included in the lists of High Value Datasets (HVDS) recently published by the European Union. An initiative that recognises the potential of public information and adds to the aim of boosting the data economy in line with the European Parliament's proposed Data Law.
ASEDIE brings together companies from different sectors that promote the data economy, which are mainly nourished by the data provided by the public sector. Among its objectives is to promote the sector and contribute to raising society's awareness of its benefits and impact. It is estimated that the data economy will generate €270 billion of additional GDP for EU Member States by 2028.
The presentation of this edition of the report, entitled 'The Data Economy in the infomediary field', took place on 22 March in Red.es's Enredadera room. In this year's edition of the report, 710 active companies have been identified, with a turnover of more than 2,278 million euros. It should be noted that the first report in 2013 counted 444 companies. Therefore, the sector has grown by 60% in a decade.
Main conclusions of the report
- The infomediary sector has grown by 12.1%, a figure above the national GDP growth of 7.6%. These data are drawn from the analysis of the 472 companies (66% of the sample) that submitted their accounts for the previous years.
- The number of employees is 22,663. Workers are highly concentrated in a few companies: 62% of them have less than 10 workers. The subsector with the highest number of professionals is Geographic information, with 30% of the total. Together with the sub-sectors Financial economics, Technical consultancy and Market research, they account for 75% of the employees.
- Employment in the companies of the Infomediary Sector grew by 1.7%, compared to a fall of 1.1% in the previous year. All sub-sectors have grown, except for Tourism and Culture, which have remained the same, and Technical Consultancy and Market Research, which have decreased.
- The average turnover per employee exceeded 100,000 euros, an increase of 6.6% compared to the previous year. On the other hand, the average expenditure per employee was 45,000 euros.
- The aggregate turnover was 2,279,613,288 euros. The Geographical Information and Economic and Financial subsectors account for 46% of sales.
- The aggregate subscribed capital is 250,115,989 euros. The three most capitalised subsectors are Market Research, Economic and Financial and Geographic Information, which account for 66% of capitalisation.
- The net result exceeds 180 million euros, 70 million more than last year. The Economic and Financial subsector accounted for 66% of total profits.
- The sub-sectors of Geographical Information, Market Research, Financial Economics and Computer Infomediaries account for 76% of the infomediary companies, with a total of 540 companies out of the 710 active companies.
- The Community of Madrid is home to the largest number of companies in the sector, with 39%, followed by Catalonia (13%), Andalusia (11%) and the Community of Valencia (9%).
As the report shows, the arrival of new companies is driving the development of a sector that already has a turnover of around 2,300 million euros per year, and which is growing at a higher rate than other macroeconomic indicators in the country. These data show not only that the Infomediary Sector is in good health, but also its resilience and growth potential.
Progress of the Study on the impact of open data in Spain
The report also includes the results of a survey of the different actors that make up the data ecosystem, in collaboration with the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid. This survey is presented as the first exercise of a more ambitious study that aims to know the impact of open data in Spain and to identify the main barriers to its access and availability. To this end, a questionnaire has been sent to members of the public, private and academic sectors. Among the main conclusions of this first survey, we can highlight the following:
- As main barriers to publishing information, 65% of respondents from the public sector mentioned lack of human resources, 39% lack of political leadership and 38% poor data quality.
- The biggest obstacle in accessing public data for re-use is for public sector respondents that the information provided in the data is not homogeneous (41.9%). Respondents from the academic sector point to the lack of quality of the data (43%) and from the private sector it is believed that the main barrier is the lack of updating (49%).
- In terms of the frequency of use of public data, 63% of respondents say that they use the data every day or at least once a week.
- 61% of respondents use the data published on the datos.gob.es portal.
- Respondents overwhelmingly believe that the impact of data openness on the private sector is positive. Thus, 77% of private sector respondents indicate that accessing public data is economically viable and 89% of them say that public data enables them to develop useful solutions.
- 95% of respondents call for a compendium of regulations affecting the access, publication and re-use of public sector data.
- 27% of public sector respondents say they are not aware of the six categories of high-value data set out in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 20137138 .
This shows that most respondents are aware of the potential of the sector and the impact of public sector data, although they indicate that some obstacles to re-use need to be overcome and believe that a compendium of the different existing regulations would facilitate their implementation and help the development of the sector.
Top 3 ASEDIE
As in previous editions, the report includes the status of the Top 3 ASEDIE, an initiative that aims for all Autonomous Communities to fully open three sets of data, following unified criteria that facilitate their reuse, and which is included in the IV Open Government Plan. In 2019, the opening of the Cooperatives, Associations and Foundations databases was proposed, and there are currently 16 Autonomous Communities in which they can be accessed in full. Moreover, in eight of them, it is possible to access the NIF with a unique identifier, which improves transparency and makes the information more accurate.
Taking into account the good results of the first proposal, in 2020 a new request for opening data was launched, the Second Top 3 ASEDIE, in this case of Energy Efficiency Certificates, SAT Registries (Agricultural Transformation Companies) and Industrial Estates, whose evolution has also been very positive. The following map shows the opening situation of these three new databases in 2023.
The Top 3 ASEDIE initiative has been a success and has become a reference in the sector, promoting the opening of databases in a joint manner and demonstrating that it is possible to harmonise public data sources to put them at the service of society.
The next steps in this sense will be to monitor the databases already open and to disseminate them at all levels, including the identification of good practices of the Administration and the selection of examples to encourage public-private collaboration in open data. In addition, a new top 3 will be identified to advance in the opening of new databases, and a new initiative will be launched to reach the bodies of the General State Administration, with the identification of a new Top 3 AGE.
Success stories
The report also includes a series of success stories of products and services developed with public sector data, such as Iberinform's API Market, which facilitates access to and integration of 52 sets of company and self-employed data in company management systems. Another successful case is Geocode, a solution focused on standardisation, validation, correction, codification and geolocation processes for postal addresses in Spain and Portugal.
Geomarketing makes it possible to increase the speed of calculating geospatial data and Infoempresa.com has improved its activity reports on Spanish companies, making them more visual, complete and intuitive. Finally, Pyramid Data makes it possible to access the Energy Efficiency Certificates (EEC) of a given property portfolio.
As examples of good practices in the public sector, the ASEDIE report highlights the open statistical data as a driver of the Data Economy of the Canary Islands Statistics Institute (ISTAC) and the technology for the opening of data of the Open Data Portal of the Andalusian Regional Government (Junta de Andalucía).
As a novelty, the category of examples of good practices in the academic sector has been incorporated, which recognises the work carried out by the Geospatial Code and the Report on the state of open data in Spain III, by the Rey Juan Carlos University and FIWARE Foundation.
The 11th ASEDIE Report on the Data Economy in the infomediary field can be downloaded from the ASEDIE website in Spanish. The presentations of the economic indicators and the Top 3 and the Data Ecosystem are also available.
In summary, the report shows the good health of the industry that confirms its recovery after the pandemic, its resilience and growth potential and, in addition, the good results of public-private collaboration and its impact on the data economy are observed.
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