In 2024, operating revenue in cultural and creative industries was approximately 179 billion ISK and increased about 6.0% from 2023 when it was about 169 billion ISK. In 2024 prices, the increase was about 0.1%.
Operating revenue was the highest in film and TV, approximately 49.2 billion, and had the highest increase, proportionally at about 17.9% from the previous year when the operating revenue was approximately 41.8 billion ISK.
Operating revenue also increased significantly in visual arts, about 12.6%, and in cultural heritage, about 10.2%. However, operating revenue decreased in a few categories, mostly in arts education, which saw a decrease of about 12.4%, from 2.9 billion ISK to 2.6 billion ISK. Including printing and music, about 9.2% and 5.6% respectively.
Enterprises
Enterprises in cultural and creative industries in 2024 were 3,618 and increased by about 28, or approximately one percent from the previous year.
Most enterprises were in music, about 687 in total and increased by 12 from the year before, which equates to 1.8% increase. However, the category with the fewest enterprises was computer games, with 17 enterprises, and decreased by one from the previous year.
Enterprises in movies and TV decreased the most in 2024, by 25 persons, or about 3.7%. However, the largest proportional decrease was in arts education, by about 10 or 13.9%. The largest increase was in visual arts, by about 42 or 9.1%.
About the data
Statistics Iceland‘s cultural indicators are based on a special side categorisation of enterprises and organisations into cultural and creative industries, allowing for a breakdown between industries. The categorisation was developed with the needs of Icelandic users for official statistics in mind and is based on a system of categorising NACE rev. 2 economic activities either fully or partly into specific cultural and creative industries.
Those economic activities which are not fully categorised as falling within a specific cultural and creative industry are then examined and organisations within it manually categorised into cultural and creative industries. The aim is to categorise all organisations which have 3 million ISK or more in operating revenue for at least one year during the reference period, covering at least 90% of the total operating revenues within the population. Unfortunately, the cultural indicators are currently only available in Icelandic but the numbers behind them can be found in web tables.