However, the future looks brighter for e-commerce…

While still trailing the U.S. in terms of percentage of Internet users, Europe made great strides in the online world last year, according to new research from IDC. Before 1998, many Europeans perceived the Internet as a domain for academics, scientists and technically minded people. However, by the end of last year, many considered the Web an important business and consumer information tool, IDC said. Approximately 10 percent of Western Europe was connected to the Internet by the end of the year, but penetration rates varied greatly from country to country. By 2002, IDC predicted, 35 percent of Western Europeans will use the Internet. However, while Europe may have caught on to the Internet in 1998, people here still have a long way to go in terms of using e-commerce. Europeans are wary of purchasing products online and only 11 percent of Internet users actually made an online purchase in the last three months of the year, IDC said. In 1998, e-commerce was worth 4.87 billion euros ($5.6 billion) in Western Europe, but the majority of this figure is represented by business-to-business transactions, IDC said. Business-to-consumer transactions accounted for just 1.61 billion euros by the end of the year. However, the future looks brighter for e-commerce, with around 25 percent of Western European Web users expected to make purchases online by 2002, according to IDC. use the Internet.