E-Commerce Market in Asia Still Hot After Dotcom Burst

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 31, 2002

E-Commerce Market in Asia Still Hot After Dotcom Burst

E-Commerce in the Asia Pacific region is still considered the best means to have access to globalmarkets, providing enterprises with endless opportunities to exploit and expand their customer base.

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E-Commerce in the Asia Pacific region is still considered the best means to have access to globalmarkets, providing enterprises with endless opportunities to exploit and expand their customer base.

The comment on e-commerce development came after a number of worldwide surveys on the global IT markets by International Data Corporation (IDC), a leading global market intelligence and advisory firm, showing the e-commerce solution market is still hotafter dot-com burst.

Outside the region, latest figures released by the U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau also showed a surge in the U.S.e-commerce sales in the first quarter of this year, up about 19 percent from the first quarter a year ago to an estimated 9.849 billion U.S. dollars.

When the U.S. government first started making e-commerce retailsales estimates, e-commerce sales were only 0.7 percent of total sales in the fourth quarter of 1999, and now the e-commerce sales represented about 1.3 percent of total sales.

In Asia, e-commerce continues to play an increasing role in driving economic growth despite losing some of its glamour following the downfall of dot-com hype, said Robin Giang, researchmanager of IT solutions for IDC Asia Pacific.

"Even with the current worldwide recession, e-commerce spendingand e-commerce solution investments are booming," Giang stressed.

Despite all the turbulence surrounding e-commerce, organizations are still glued to the alluring idea of buying, selling and transacting in virtual space. Slowly, e-commerce is weaving itself into the fabric of the worldwide economy, Giang said.

Around the region, a number of long-term visionaries and business leaders have already begun to see the benefits of an e-commerce solution implementation, including integrated order and procurement management systems, as well as sales, marketing and customer support (i.e. payment and billing) functionality, Giang added.

IT experts here expect the Asia Pacific e-commerce solutions market to expand at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 24 percent to reach 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2006. The Asia Pacific e-commerce solutions market reached 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2001.

Leading the market growth in this space will be countries such as China, Australia and the Republic of Korea. Additionally, vertical industries such as banking, telecommunications and manufacturing will continue to drive e-commerce solutions spendingfor the region.

In China, the development e-commerce market has gained momentumin recent years. Auction giant eBay Inc., continuing its push to become a global operation, was putting up 30 million U.S. dollars in March this year to buy a one-third stake in EachNet, an online,person-to-person trading operation based in Shanghai.

According to Meg Whitman, eBay's president and CEO, over the next three to four years, China's e-commerce revenue is projected to grow nearly twelvefold to more than 16 billion U.S. dollars, Whitman added.

A recent regional study by IDC also showed that many more organizations are currently considering e-commerce as the next phase of evolution in their e-business strategy to counter the different pressures they face amid growing competition.

The ability of e-commerce solutions to expand market reach and marketing coverage, and to achieve seamless information flow to enable faster decision-making and customer service are the compelling reasons observed for the continued solution investment,IDC experts believed.

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