Electronics industry
Industry sector Annual revenue Year
B2B e-commerce ( business-to-business ) $ 25,516,000,000,000 2017
Tech industry ( high tech ) $ 4,800,000,000,000 2018
Mobile technology $ 3,900,000,000,000 2018
B2C e-commerce ( business-to-consumer ) $ 3,851,000,000,000 2017
Consumer electronics $ 1,712,900,000,000 2016
Semiconductor industry $ 481,000,000,000 2018
Television broadcasting services $ 407,700,000,000 2017
Power electronics $ 218,000,000,000 2011
TFT liquid-crystal displays ( TFT LCD ) $ 141,000,000,000 2017
Video games $ 137,900,000,000 2018
Home video film industry $ 55,700,000,000 2018
Music streaming and music downloads $ 11,200,000,000 2018
Largest electronics industry sectors
The electronics industry emerged in the 20th century and is today one of the largest global industries. Contemporary society uses a vast array of electronic devices built in automated or semi-automated factories operated by the industry. Products are primarily assembled from metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistors and integrated circuits, the latter principally by photolithography and often on printed circuit boards. The size of the industry and the use of toxic materials, as well as the difficulty of recycling has led to a series of problems with electronic waste. International regulation and environmental legislation has been developed in an attempt to address the issues. The electronics industry consists of various sectors. The central driving force behind the entire electronics industry is the semiconductor industry sector, which has annual sales of over as of 2018. The largest industry sector is e-commerce, which generated over in 2017. The most widely manufactured electronic device is the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), invented in 1959, which is the workhorse of the electronics industry.