The nation’s online commerce is expected to surpass the NT$300 billion (US$9.12 billion) mark this year to reach NT$312 billion, demonstrating year-on-year growth of 30.54 percent from last year, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said on Thursday.
As a country, Taiwan has been relatively slow to embrace Internet commerce, the CEPD said.
“However, since 2006, when official figures were first published, Taiwan has reported the highest annual growth rate in the world. From 2006’s NT$134 billion to 2008’s NT$239 billion, there is an astounding 80 percent growth for the three-year duration,” it said.
The council has commissioned Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所) under the Institute for Information Industry, to conduct research on its behalf.
Web commerce is divided into two categories: online auction (consumer-to-consumer) and online shopping (consumer-to-business). The forecast for this year showed NT$143 billion for the online auction business and NT$169 billion for online shopping, the council said on its Web site.
The local Internet economy has defied the global recession, showing increased double-digit growth year-on-year.
Meanwhile, the worldwide online commerce annual growth rate dropped to 7.8 percent last year, compared to 13.2 percent in 2007, and is expected to dip even lower to 6.2 percent this year, before a major pickup next year of 14.6 percent, assuming economic recovery, MIC’s research showed.
Worldwide online commerce has averaged around 10 percent year-on-year growth since 2007.
In dollar values, the global Internet commerce market is forecast to reach US$830.33 billion this year, compared to last year’s US$782.03 billion, and next year is estimated to reach US$951.37 billion, the CEPD said.
As a percentage of the nation’s total retail business, online commerce has increased its market share from 2.6 percent in 2006 to last year’s 3.7 percent, and is projected to reach 4.2 percent this year.
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