E-commerce to grow 57 percent

Remember e-commerce? Well, it's still around, and despite the downturn in the stock markets and the US economy, it's set to continue growing at a blistering pace in 2001.

So says a study by research firm eMarketer released this week which predicts e-commerce sales will grow by 57 percent this year, rising to $65.9bn (about £44bn) this year from $42bn in 2000.

The first quarter of 2001 alone is set to top $13.5bn, higher even than the $12.5bn spent during the Christmas quarter of late 2000, according to the report.

A caveat, though: eMarketer notes that if the economy does slow down appreciably, e-commerce will suffer too.

Find out how the Internet is revolutionising the economy at the E-commerce Special.

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