Communication services sector
The communication services sector covers companies that connect people and deliver information and entertainment: telecom and cable network operators, media and entertainment companies, and digital platforms that earn most of their money from advertising, such as search engines and social networks.
The businesses inside it look very different from each other. Telecom networks require huge, ongoing investment in physical infrastructure and tend to grow slowly with steady . Digital platforms, on the other hand, can serve millions of additional users at very little extra cost, which allows fast growth and high margins once they reach scale.
Because so much of the depends on advertising, parts of it are sensitive to the economy, since companies tend to cut ad budgets when business slows. When comparing a company against this 's typical numbers, check first which kind of business it is, since a cable operator and an online platform share a label but very little else.