3 Industries that may Keep Growing for the Next Decades

Industries can grow or shrink, and different times had different industries being the main driving force for economic growth.

Industries Driving Economic Growth Change Over Time

Before the Industrial Revolution,

the economy was food-centric. For example, whoever had more cattle or more strength to till the land could produce more food comparatively. Therefore, cattle and manpower were the economy drivers.

After the Industrial Revolution,

it had become that who had the skills to build machines or the access to energy such as fuel had economic advantages. Even farmers could produce more food with the access to machines.

In the Information Age,

televisions, cell phones, computers are not just for entertainment, but are also for productivity. For example, Google, Netflix and Amazon use data analytics for marketing. As opposed to using traditional marketing strategy of "product first, then marketing", they are able to target audience first and decide what products to make, which greatly reduce marketing and production expenses. They can even sell their data analytics results, which could not be imagined possible without the help of internet, computer programming and mathematics.

What are the Next Big Industries?

The Renewable Energy Industry

With limited amount of fossil fuel, we will have to find some other sustainable ways to produce electricity, otherwise, our lives will go back to the pre-industrialization age. Renewable energy such as wind or solar power can be the best candidates for it.

Companies that produce products that use renewable energy will just become more and more important to humanity. Car companies begin to research how to produce electric cars. Factories begin to put up solar panels to generate electricity.

The Recycling and Reuse Industry 

Just like fossil fuels, materials such as gold, copper and iron only have limited amount. It is crucial to develop and improve the recycling and reuse industry.

Companies that hold key recycling or reuse technology will play a key role in the future.

The Space Industry 

The space industry is pretty young, considering not when space shuttles were invented, but how asteroid mining or space tourism can be possible.

It is quite surprising that space industry can even be a "private" driven industry, taking into account the resources it takes to fire a rocket into space and how much to make one.

I guess there are two reasons why space industry can become reality:

1. New technology can reduce costs of rocket launches.
2. The overall economy has grown to a level where more and more people can afford more expensive things.

Signs of Growing Renewable Energy Industry

There are more and more electric cars on the roads, which could be a sign of the growing renewable energy industry.

In theory, electric cars are not as efficient as their gas counterpart with respect to using the same source of fuel, gas. Electric cars can use electricity produce by a gas power plant and during the electricity transferring process into the cars, some electricity energy was lost.

However, car makers have started putting a lot of time and money into researching and developing electric cars.

Tesla, for example, has become one of the largest electric car makers in the world and was even accepted as an S&P 500 company by the end of 2020.

Tesla Earnings Per Share History ¹

year	EPS
2020	$0.64
2019	$ -0.98
2018	$ -1.14
2017	$ -2.37
2016	$ -0.94
2015	$ -1.39
2014	$ -0.47
2013	$ -0.12
2012	$ -0.74
2011	$ -0.51
2010	$ -0.61
2009	$ -1.59
2008	$ -2.49

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1 macrotrends. www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/eps-earnings-per-share-diluted. Accessed 21 July 2021.