Original Title: Faster Digital Transformation in the U.S. Digital Divide Exacerbates Injustice
The United States is the first country in the world to deploy digital transformation. The US Department of Commerce issued a special report on the digital economy as early as 1998, pointing out that the development of information technology, the Internet and e-commerce will produce new forms of digital economy. In the past 15 years, the digital economy in the United States has flourished, with an average annual growth rate of over 6%, which is three times the growth rate of the overall economy. In 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic will further force companies and traditional industries to accelerate digital transformation. New business formats such as remote office, online education, telemedicine, and contactless delivery continue to emerge, and the US digital economy has entered a new stage of accelerated development.
The Oxford Institute for Economic Research has calculated that in 2016, the U.S. digital economy accounted for 35% of U.S. GDP. According to a report recently released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the scale of the U.S. digital economy will reach USD 13.6 trillion in 2020, accounting for about 65% of U.S. GDP, ranking first in the world.
In the context of the continuous spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, for many American businesses, digital transformation has become a matter of life and death.
Last year, the most favored by American investors were those digital-intensive, asset-light business models, such as the used car sales e-commerce platform Cavana Company, short-term rental platformAirbnbE-commerce giantAmazonAnd companies that provide infrastructure platforms for these models, such asMicrosoft, Softvision Software Company, etc.
The industries that are most affected by digital transformation are those industries that traditionally operate in non-digital ways and have low levels of digital practice. For example, in the healthcare industry, many American hospitals still use fax and mail to send medical records, but the epidemic has forced industry changes, and telemedicine services have expanded significantly. According to McKinsey’s data, in 2019, only 11% of American consumers used telemedicine services, and now this proportion has risen to 46%.
Before the outbreak of the epidemic, US retailers have accelerated their e-commerce deployment. The digitalization of the retail industry has been further transformed. Online transactions for payments such as credit cards, online banking, and fast payment software have increased significantly. Online retailers have also done so in simulating on-site shopping experience. It’s getting better and better.
According to data from Adobe Analytics, at the end of 2020, e-commerce sales in the U.S. reached 844 billion U.S. dollars, a sharp increase of 42% year-on-year. In the first eight months of this year, US consumers’ online shopping reached US$541 billion, an increase of 9% year-on-year. It is estimated that by 2022, online shopping in the United States will exceed the $1 trillion mark. However, due to supply chain disruptions and surge in consumer demand, some commodities are severely out of stock, and the average price of online shopping has also risen significantly.
It needs to be pointed out that there is still a huge digital divide between different regions and different races in the United States. The digital divide will cause inequality in access to education, employment opportunities, and public services, further exacerbating income and wealth inequality in the United States, and widening the disparity between racial rich and poor. This will be a problem that the United States urgently needs to solve in the process of economic digital transformation. (Economic Information Daily)
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