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E-commerce grows 30 pct in BrazilSao Paulo, Jan 9, 2009 (EFE via COMTEX) -- E-commerce in Brazil grew 30 percent in 2008, despite the international financial crisis that shook markets and slowed consumption, the annual balance of the consultancy e-Bit showed Friday. The report said that business invoicing on the Internet, not including automotive sales, airline tickets and judicial online auctions, last year reached 8.2 billion reais ($3.58 billion). Before the crisis, which deepened in the last quarter of 2008, the growth estimate for the year was 35 percent. The e-Bit director in charge of the report, Pedro Guasti, pointed to consumer "intelligence" as the main factor for increasing Brazilian e-commerce. "The Web is a medium that offers users all kinds of information and in the end makes them feel more secure," the executive said. In 2008, 3.7 million Brazilian consumers made their first purchase via Internet, which also contributed to growth and helped avoid a downturn after the global crisis began. For 2009, with a "correction" in the global economy as it attempts a recovery, Brazilian e-commerce expects growth of between 20 and 25 percent to approximately 10 billion reais ($4.36 billion). Brazil ended 2008 with close to 43 million Internet users, according to Ibope/NetRatings statistics cited Tuesday in the business daily Valor. The number of cybernauts could be even greater since the statistics included only people over 16 with Web access from home, workplaces, schools, libraries and Internet cafes, the newspaper said. Brazil is expected to end 2009 with some 50 million people having Internet access, the equivalent of close to 26 percent of the population. "The last two years were periods of very strong growth for the Internet, a phase that won't be repeated in 2009, but the country will undoubtedly keep up a good rhythm of increased access," the coordinator of the technology research center of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Fernando Meirelles, told Valor. The growth in the number of Brazilian cybernauts comes chiefly from the poorest sectors that previously had no access to the technology, as well as by the increase in points of access in the home. Up to last November, the number of people living in places where there was a computer with Internet access increased to 38.2 million, a 73 percent growth over the last two years, according to Ibope figures. Of the cybernauts, 59 percent say they have Web access in their homes, compared with 21 percent at work, 15 percent in Internet cafes and similar establishments and 4 percent at school. With regard to frequency of access, 44 percent said they visit the Web several times a day, 20 percent once or twice a week, 19 percent at least once a day, 12 percent three to five times a week and 5 percent a few times a week. EFE wgm/cd |