Global business-to-business e-commerce will undergo year-to-year growth of 76 percent through 2005 and account for 86 percent of all worldwide e-commerce in 2005, according to a study by IDC released yesterday.
But few North American companies are ready to take advantage of the expanding international markets, the study said.
Only 12 percent of North American companies' Web sites support multilingual versions, IDC said. In contrast, 50 percent of Asia-Pacific companies and 40 percent of Western European enterprises have multilingual sites.
Other findings of the study include:
· BTB e-commerce spending outside the United States will increase to $2.8 trillion by 2005.
· The U.S. share of worldwide BTB e-commerce will fall from 41 percent in 2000 to 36 percent in 2005. Western Europe's share will rise from 20 percent in 2000 to 34 percent in 2005.
· The fastest-growing international markets are Western Europe, at $1.5 trillion, and Asia-Pacific at $516.3 billion.
· More than 85 percent of BTB buyers will live outside the United States by 2005.
· Eighty percent of manufacturing sites have multilingual content, far higher than that of other industries surveyed.
· While fewer than 12 percent of U.S. companies plan to offer multilingual support on their Web sites, 50 percent of their international counterparts plan to do so.
