The Impact of Intangible Assets and R&D Expenditure on the Market Capitalization and EBITDA of Selected ICT Sector Enterprises in the European Union

In the present paper, using the panel regression model with fixed effects, it was verified whether there is a relationship between intangible assets and R&D expenses on one side and the EBITDA level and market capitalization of 222 publicly listed companies from the Information and Communication Technology sector. Our research confirmed that in the group of companies from the ICT sector there is a medium of dependence of EBITDA on intangible assets and R&D expenditure. At the same time, at the level of the entire ICT sector, no relationship was found between the level of intangible assets and expenditures on research and development on the one hand, and the level of market capitalization of companies on the other. A similar lack of dependence was recorded in the ICT services and ICT manufacturing subsectors. In addition, there was a high correlation at the level of 74% between the level of intangible assets and R&D expenditure on the one hand and the EBITDA level obtained by companies from the ICT manufacturing sub-sector and the lack of such correlation in the ICT services sub-sector. Our research suggests that, in particular, the financial results of companies in the ICT sector may directly depend on the amount of expenses that companies incur in order to introduce new innovative solutions into their market offer.