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German Companies Aren't Betting on E-Business

http://www.internetnews.com/intl-news/print/0,1089,6_252501,00.html

December 2, 1999 Frank Petersen, Germany Correspondent

International News Archives

[Berlin] German businesses seem to have quite a poor view of the future of e-commerce, according to a recent pan-European marketing study by German consulting group CMG.

According to the report, around 71 percent of all German businesses are currently not making any notable amount of profit via the Internet, and only 17 percent expect a noticeable increase in this sector over the next 12 months.

Around 30 percent of German companies are convinced that, even in the best case scenario, they would only be able to generate a quarter of their total revenue from online business.

Compared to the last study, which carried out about 6 months ago, the overall perception of e-commerce in Germany has turned pessimistic. German lags far behind its European neighbors in terms of online expectations: three quarters of European countries expecting a considerable increase in e-commerce during the next year, whereas 36 percent of German firms believe that development is more likely to stagnate.

In contrast to Germany, other European countries are entirely convinced that in 2 years time, more than a quarter of total revenue will derive from electronic trading. Around 60 percent of German firms do not even believe that this will be the case within the next five years.

However, while more than half of all German managing directors believe the Internet is an important sales channel, around 75 percent of non-German managers hold the same opinion.

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