Autoworld understands potential of e-commerce, says Moggie

PETALING JAYA: A change in mindset is necessary as many businesses still have self-doubt and did not see or understand the potential of electronic commerce (e-commerce), said Energy, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Amar Leo Moggie yesterday.

Although the business communities were aware of the benefits of e-commerce, the lack of technical expertise and full range capabilities to set up an online operation remain barriers for businesses to venture into e-commerce, he said at the launch of autoworld.com.my, here.

Autoworld is the country’s first and largest one-stop auto-shopping site in the Internet developed by Autoweb Sdn Bhd.

Moggie said: “Why do we need to wire businesses using the Internet? The arithmetic is clear. Websites are being added at the rate of 10,000 sites per day.

“Current retail users of the Internet worldwide stands at more than 10 million, and it is estimated that each month, a million more users will buy via the Internet.”

It was also estimated that there would be 1.6 million commercial websites by 2002, compared to 414,000 early last year.

Moggie said there were over 600,000 subscribers registered with the local Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Jaring and TMNet alone, and the number of subscribers with the two ISPs were expected to increase to about 34 million by the year 2005.

“As to e-commerce revenue it is projected that it will increase to RM4 billion in 2001 from RM57 million 1998 (International Data Corporation’s projection).

These are compelling figures – great signs of the vast opportunities for Internet growth in Malaysia,” he added. – Bernama