Consultancy PwC expects that the energy, telecoms and retail sectors are likely to be next in seeing huge growth as part of the sharing economy.
In a report looking at the sharing economy, where the consumer might rent or subscribe to a service or product rather than buy it, PwC said that total revenues in the five most prominent sharing economy sectors are likely to rise to £9 billion from £0.5 billion today. Globally, revenues could hit $335 billion by 2025 from just $15 billion today.
Currently, these five key sharing economy sectors are peer-to-peer (P2P) finance, online staffing, P2P accommodation, car sharing and music/video streaming.
According to PwC, the sharing economy is a result of long-term megatrends colliding together, driven mainly by advances in technology, resource scarcity and social change.
PwC chief economist John Hawksworth said: “In some ways, the sharing economy is a throwback to the pre-industrial age, when village communities had to share resources to survive. They built up trust through repeated interactions with people they had known all their lives. Modern digital communications allow sharing to happen across a global village of consumers and providers, with trust established through electronic peer reviews.
“Looking beyond the sectors where sharing is already well established, there are some very exciting growth opportunities that are yet to be fully realised: companies need to do an audit of which of their tangible and intangible assets could profitably be shared in future. We think this model could spread to other sectors such as energy, telecoms and retailing.”
