InfoTorg from past to present: On a large Swedish online service and its role in the online market

The Swedish online market is quite consolidated and stable. Nearly half of the revenues come from financial services, and about one quarter from credit information services. Excluding these, InfoTorg of Sema InfoData is the largest online service, providing 140,000 users with access to about 25 online services, some by means of gateways. Based on an overview of the Swedish online market, including facts on revenues from the largest actors, this article describes the role of InfoTorg in this market, from past to present. It concludes that though challenged from several directions, the present role will last. The effects of information which is freely available on the Web will be limited, partly due to the established role of InfoTorg in the infrastructure of Swedish information provision, especially as regards official information. InfoTorg is an odd bird in an IT company, the advantages of support for advanced IT solutions in technology‐intense information business seems to more than compensate for the possible drawbacks. Continuous investments in existing and new services demonstrates the ability of Sema InfoData and InfoTorg to challenge the increasingly fierce competion from national as well as international actors in the Swedish online market.