Future Stats

Electronic News, March 15, 1999 by Arik Hesseldahl

Boston, Mass.

I spent Tuesday in Boston at International Data Corp.'s Directions '99 Conference, and have compiled a quick roundup of interesting figures for you to chew on.

IDC is bullish on what it calls the "New Economy," namely the combined money spent on Internet-related technology deployment, marketing and sales, professional services, content creation and education and training. Spending for these items in 1998 was estimated at $211 billion. By 2003, expect that figure to hit $1.5 trillion.

In 1995, there were an estimated 20 million uses on the Internet. In 1998, there were150 million. Expect 500 million by 2003.

And people using the Web are finding it easier to spend their money online. In 1998, electronic commerce totaled $40 billion. By 2003, IDC expects that figure to hit $870 billion, or about $2 million a minute. Frank Gens, IDC's vice president for Internet research said that if the Internet economy were compared to a hockey game, we're only in the first two minutes of the first period, so today's apparent winners may not even be in the game later on.

And how people use the Internet seems likely to change. Sean Kaldor, IDC's vice president of consumer device research, said that Internet- ready non-PC devices will outship PCs by 2001. By 2002, annual shipments of these devices is expected to exceed 20 million, while PC shipments will hit about 16 million. The same year, 12 percent of American homes will be running some kind of in-home network to connect all these devices.

And it appears that an increasing number of PCs sold will be so-called "white boxes" or PCs built and sold locally by firms using components purchased directly from manufacturers. About 6 million of these PCs are sold each year in the U.S. accounting for about 20 percent of the market, said Tony Amico, director of PC Channel research at IDC. Watch for those numbers to grow.

Arik Hesseldahl is Senior Editor for Computers and Communication at Electronic News. His e-mail address is arik@cahners.com.