Two recent reports from IDC have forecast a healthy outlook for ecommerce over coming years. In the first, IDC forecast that almost 1 billion people around the world will be using the Internet by 2005 and that this growth will drive ecommerce revenues to over $5 trillion by 2005, up from $354 billion in 2000.
2000 Internet Usage Breakdown By Region.
| US |
34% |
| Europe |
29% |
| Asia-Pacific (exc Japan) |
16% |
| Japan |
10% |
| Rest of the world |
11% |
Source: IDC
Growth in the Asia-Pacific region is predicted to be such that by 2005, this area will dominate in terms of internet users, while the US will be pushed down into third place after the ‘rest of the world’ sector. Generally growth in currently underdeveloped regions will accelerate, quickly outpacing more developed areas.
Following on from these numbers, IDC also predict a rosy outlook for e-commerce as a rapidly increasing number of users chose to purchase via the web. By 2005 it is predicted that almost one billion internet users will fuel an e-commerce market worth in excess of $5 trillion. Latest figures from IDC forecast that e-business spending may be worth as much as $5.3 trillion by 2005.
“The dot-com shakeout has done nothing for the reputation of the Internet and ebusiness as a whole; however, it has allowed both consumers and companies to develop more realistic expectations of what can be accomplished using the Internet,” said Daniel O’Boyle Kelly, program manager of IDC’s European Internet Economy research. “Virtues such as profitability and efficiency are finally becoming widespread in the virtual world and the collapse of certain dot-coms may actually help ebusinesses achieve more sustainable development in the future.”
“Currently, ecommerce represents a single-digit fraction of total domestic expenditure in each European country; therefore, there is plenty of opportunity for substantial growth,” O’Boyle Kelly concluded. “With this in mind, the Internet represents a way of increasing productivity and reducing costs, which in some respects increases its importance, especially in time of economic downturn.”
