PPI’s Chief Economic
Strategist Michael Mandel was cited in The Economist this week regarding the growth and potential in America’s mobile technology sector. The Economist points to Mandel’s numbers as a promising aspect of the growing U.S. services exported around the world.
Services have long been an American strength, consistently making up 30% of its exports. Within that sector, though, the share held by lower-value tourism and travel has slipped, while royalties and so-called private services—such as scientific, engineering and other consulting, plus financial services—have advanced. Exports of such services to Brazil, India and China nearly doubled between 2006 and 2010.
This trend has been pushed on by digital technology, which makes effortless the sale of many services across borders. Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank, reckons there are now 311,000 people employed making applications, games and so forth for smart devices such as Apple’s iPhone, and for Facebook. Zynga, one of the largest makers of online games and mobile entertainment applications, recorded $1.1 billion in revenue last year, largely from the sales of virtual goods in its games. A third of this came from players who live outside America.
Read the entire article HERE.
