E-commerce, pay TV and on-demand content boom in Italy: web purchases up 273% in 10 years

With the Black Friday just around the corner and Christmas shopping awaiting Italians, online commerce is increasingly penetrating the habits of Italians and registering a steady growth in turnover in our country. But spending on pay TV and on-demand content is also on the rise, to the point that in the last year the cost incurred by households for such digital services (e-commerce plus pay TV and entertainment ok demand etc.) is estimated to reach EUR 66 billion in Italy. The data were assembled by Consumers' Forum, which includes consumer associations, industrial and service companies and their trade associations.

"In 2015, there were 17.7 million Italians who resorted to e-commerce for the purchase of goods and services, today the number has doubled, and there are 35.2 million compatriots who use the web for shopping, tourist bookings, and the purchase of various services. In 10 years, citizens' expenditure has thus risen from EUR 16.6 billion (of which EUR 10 billion for services, EUR 6.6 billion for goods) to the current EUR 62 billion (of which EUR 22 billion for services, EUR 40 billion for goods), with a growth of +273%," it is highlighted. The incidence of e-commerce on retail sales thus rises from a share of 4% in 2015 to over 11% in 2025. A surge is recorded for the 'Food&Grocery' segment (catering, food, personal care), whose online spending will rise from 377 million euro in 2015 to 4.9 billion in 2025, +1,200%, thanks above all to food delivery, which alone accounts for almost half of food purchases on the web in Italy".

Also changing radically, however, is the way in which Italians use television. "In 2015, there were around 7 million citizens who had a pay-TV subscription; today, although there are no official numbers, there are an estimated 21 million subscriptions to pay-TV services in Italy (+200% in 10 years), thanks also to the arrival of new platforms operating on the Italian market and offering diversified packages to the public. Italian households' spending on digital entertainment content has now reached EUR 3.7 billion per year,' Consumers' Forum notes.

Along with Italians' spending on digital services, the power of the platforms that dominate the market, and which often engage in unfair practices to the detriment of consumers or conduct detrimental to competition, has also increased. Suffice it to say that "between 2022 and 2025 alone, the major big tech companies - Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon - have all together accumulated fines of more than USD 22.5 billion (around EUR 19.4 billion) from regulators around the world for violations of user privacy, obstacles to competition, dominant positions, unfair or deceptive practices, etc.". Fines that, however, represent a drop in the ocean and do not in the slightest dent the balance sheets of these economic superpowers: according to the latest figures on their operating results for the third quarter of 2025, Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon recorded total revenues of the monstrous figure of EUR 436 billion, with net profits that, in the quarter in question alone, flew to a total of EUR 86.4 billion," Consumers' Forum calculates. "The data clearly show how the large platforms have changed the daily habits of citizens over the years to the point of becoming indispensable for millions of Italians even for the simplest operations such as making a purchase, making a booking, or watching TV,' says the president of Consumers' Forum, Furio Truzzi. 'This power is worrying and must lead, on the one hand, to more effective regulations on the protection of consumers, businesses, privacy and competition, and, on the other, to greater powers for the sector authorities that supervise these platforms.