Japan's B2B e-commerce rises 60% in 2001

TOKYO: Japan's business to business (B2B) e-commerce market expanded by 60
per cent to 34 trillion yen ($256.2 billion) in 2001 and could reach 125
trillion yen by 2006, a survey showed on Monday.

Contributing to the growth was a rise in recession-hit Japanese companies who
went online to save procurement and other costs, according to the survey by
Japan's trade ministry and several private industry groups.

Electronics and other info-tech products accounted for 44 per cent of Japan's
B2B e-commerce transactions in 2001, followed by auto products at 40 per cent,
the survey showed.

Japan's business-to-comsumer (B2C) e-commerce market grew by 80 per cent to
1.5 trillion yen in 2001 and is expected to reach 16 trillion yen by 2006, it
said.

The popularity of Japanese Web-enabled mobile phones helped the mobile B2C
market double in size to around 120.5 billion yen in 2001 with entertainment
digital content accounting for 71 per cent of transactions, it said.