Information Technology and Telecommunications

In the field of Internet and data communications, significant investments have been made into telecommunications infrastructure, with fibre optic cables covering the whole country, and direct undersea connections to Finland and Sweden and links to Russia and Latvia, guaranteeing high-standard communications.

This sector encompasses microelectronics and software and solutions that derive from these fields, such as telecommunication, information systems, robotics etc. The sector includes enterprises engaged in the production of computers, electronic and optical equipment and programming.

The telecom industry is led by Eesti Telekom (part of the Telia Sonera Group). The dominant service providers in the telecommunications market are: EMT (owned by Eesti Telekom), Elisa (owned by Elisa Communications), Tele2 (owned by Tele2 AB), Televõrgu AS and Bravocom Mobiil AS (local).

There are 2,000 companies active in the ICT sector, contributing 5% of total sales in business activities in Estonia. Of these 2,000 about a third are small companies with no employees and 41% are micro-companies with up to 9 employees. Ninety per cent of the turnover is generated by the 100 largest enterprises. 85% of the companies in the sector are mainly Estonian-held and 13% belong to foreign investors.

The sector sales in the 2009 first quarter were 358 million EUR and the value-added services 115 million EUR. While the average proportion of export is 29% of the turnover, differences across sub-sectors are considerable. Although software companies are mainly focussed on meeting the domestic demand (financial services, telecom and government sectors), their export volumes have grown over recent years, which means that service companies become clearly more export oriented.