From Venture Burn

Fresh ecommerce stats from Statista.com show that 40% of worldwide internet users have bought products or goods online via desktop, mobile, tablet or other online devices. This amounts to more than 1 billion online buyers and is projected to grow steadily.

The boom in global online shopping comes off the back of innovative encryption and continuous security upgrades by leading payment gateway providers.

eMarketer also estimates that business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales worldwide will reach US$1.92-trillion in 2016.

The African region’s impressive mobile data usage is well documented and is predicted to double between 2014 and 2015, and with a 20-fold increase by the end of the decade. A recent report by McKinsey & Company revealed that ecommerce could account for 10% of retail sales in the African continent’s largest economies by 2025.

As South African shoppers gear up for another year of purchases many will be clicking the ‘add to cart’ button. Should there be any cause for concern, though?

South Africa’s Internet penetration lies at 17 percent, this coupled with an 86 percent adult mobile phone penetration rate, and a highly developed telecommunications network tells the tale of a population that is comfortable engaging the technology.

This is in addition to the recent distinction of South Africa being ‘the most developed digital economy in Africa’, and one of the fastest growing in the world, by the new Digital Evolution Index developed by MasterCard.

Read more at Venture Burn