Much attention has comparatively been devoted to the analysis of productivity change in manufacturing production without paying due attention to changes in the service industries and their role in the industrialization process. In this article, an attempt is made to chart comparative productivity levels and growths and their components in two industrializing nations, France and Britain, in the nineteenth century, bringing out an assessment of their impact on physical output. It shows that the development of the service industries cannot be viewed as the mere fall out of industrialization which far from describing a transformation restricted to the mode of production of the physical goods sector encompassed a broad extension of market activities for goods and services.