Economy

Imports
$190 billion (2022). Crude Petroleum ($14.2B), Cars ($9.84B), Refined Petroleum ($8.81B), Broadcasting Equipment ($6.44B), and Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($5.66B), importing mostly from Germany ($30B), Netherlands ($19.3B), Norway ($17.7B), China ($13.6B), and Denmark ($11.6B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 99.7% have an account with a financial institution
• 45% have a credit card
• 84% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 82 out of 100) ranked 7th out of 44 OECD high income countries ranked 10th out of 190 countries worldwide (2019, World Bank).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 2nd out of 39 European countries, 2nd out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Exports
$194 billion (2022).  Refined Petroleum ($12.9B), Cars ($11.9B), Packaged Medicaments ($8.25B), Electricity($5.83B), and Sawn Wood ($4.76B), exporting mostly to Germany ($19.2B), Norway ($18.7B), United States ($17.8B), Denmark ($14.6B), and Finland ($13.4B).

Main local online stores
Ikea.com, Netonnet.se,  Elgiganten.se,  Webbhallen.com, Zalando.se, Hm.com, Mediamarkt.se, Coop.se, Apotea.se, Sas.se.

Main foreign online stores
Amazon.com, Aliexpress.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Norwegian.com, Asos.com, Etsy.com, Lightinthebox.com, Allegro.pl.

Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (rated 77.5 out of 100) ranked 6th out of 44 European countries ranked 9th out of 186 countries worldwide (2024, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Source: OEC

Media

Media language
Swedish, English.

Information channels
Sweden is a major force in Scandinavian media and is home to regional media giants Bonnier and Modern Times Group (MTG). TV remains the most popular medium, with radio and online media at its heels. Public Sveriges Television’s (SVT) main competitor is privately-owned TV4. Most households have multichannel TV. Public Sveriges Radio runs national and regional networks. Some privately-owned radio networks have national coverage. The government subsidies newspapers regardless of their political stance. Papers tend not to have formal links to a political party. Instead, they are described in terms such as “independent liberal” or “independent conservative”. Swedes have traditionally been avid newspaper readers, but the press is under pressure from digital rivals. Sweden rates highly for media freedom. It occupied number three position in the Reporters Without Borders 2019 World Press Freedom Index, behind Norway and Finland.

Television

Sveriges Television (SVT) – public
TV4 – commercial
TV3 – commercial
Kanal 5 – commercial

Radio

Sveriges Radio – public
Rix FM – commercial, music
NRJ – commercial, music
Mix Megapol – commercial, music

News agency

TT – owned by several media groups

The press

Aftonbladet – Stockholm-based daily
Dagens Nyheter – Stockholm-based daily
Expressen – Stockholm-based daily
Svenska Dagbladet – Stockholm-based daily
Goteborgs Posten – Gothenburg-based daily
Sydsvenskan – Malmo-based daily
The Local – English-language online news

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 137.1%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 98.6%

Most popular web search engines
Google (93.57%), Bing (4.03%), Yahoo (1.37%),  Duckduckgo (0.68%), Ecosia (0.13%).

Most used social media
Facebook (74.65%), Twitter (8.22%),  Instagram (7.01%), Pinterest (5.06%), YouTube (3.59%), Reddit (0.82%), Tumblr (0.18%).

Graduates
Between 2008 and 2018, the proportion of younger Swedish adults (25-34 year-olds) with a tertiary education grew from 41% to 48% compared to 35% and 44% on average across OECD countries. Although this increase in tertiary attainment rates is similar to other Nordic countries, it is much lower compared to some other OECD countries, which may be due to relatively high historical attainment levels. First-time entrants into tertiary education tend to go for longer studies: 27% enrolled at master’s level compared to 7% on average across OECD countries (2019).

Corruption perceptions Index
Sweden scored 82 out of 100, ranked 6 out 180 countries worldwide.

World Happiness Index
Sweden ranked 7 out of 146 countries, with a score of 7.384.