Internet shopping surges in popularity in Hong Kong

Oct 7, 2003 -HONG KONG: Internet shopping in Hong Kong has surged in popularity in the past year but most people appear to be only window-shopping, a survey published Friday found.

The most popular shopping sites, such as Yahoo and Amazon, have seen a 47% rise in visits by Hong Kong people, according to Internet market research company Nielsen/NetRatings.

A total of 823,000 Hong Kong people visited the top 100 shopping sites this year compared with 562,000 this year, researchers found.

The number of people using the Internet in the territory has risen from 1.7 million to 2.1 million over the same period.

Nielsen/NetRatings director Peter Steyn told Friday's South China Morning Post that despite the rise in visits to shopping sites, Hong Kong people were using the Internet to compare products and prices.

Hong Kong consumers are wary about spending money online, thinking the technology unsafe, and prefer to browse the Internet for price comparisons before buying in shops. - dpa

E-government shows steady gains in Hong Kong

E-government in the HKSAR is showing signs of life with the number of people visiting gov.hk domains from home growing 46 percent year on year, compared to only 24 percent growth in the total number of people using the Internet in Hong Kong over the same period, according to latest information from Nielsen//NetRatings. "Year on year, the growth of audiences to each of the top 10 gov.hk domains outstripped overall Internet user growth in Hong Kong. In August 2002, no less than 34 percent of at-home surfers visited a gov.hk site," stated Peter Steyn, sales and marketing director, Nielsen//NetRatings Hong Kong in a press release.

The general Hong Kong government information at info.gov.hk made it the top-ranking domain within the gov.hk property, recording a total of 407,592 unique visitors in August. The site contains comprehensive information about the Hong Kong SAR, including government services and news, and attracts a heavy 18 to 34 year old following.

"The second and third ranked -- lcsd.gov.hk and hkpl.gov.hk -- have consistently recorded increases in audience numbers since they were launched in Hong Kong. Lcsd.gov.hk provides information on leisure and cultural services, museums, performing arts, recreation and sports. Hkpl.gov.hk, the Hong Kong public libraries site, is an increasingly popular site in Hong Kong and offers the convenience of online library browsing, as well as reserving and renewing of library books," noted Steyn.

The fourth ranked hko.gov.hk and seventh ranked weather.gov.hk, both directing to the Hong Kong Observatory site, had a combined unique audience (unduplicated) of 190,000, which would place them at rank number two. The site carries comprehensive information about the current weather and forecasts, up-to-date tracking of cyclones, and a wealth of statistics and weather related information and news.

The fifth ranking domain, jobs.gov.hk, had the second highest year on year growth among the top 10 gov.hk domains, with unemployment in Hong Kong currently sitting well above seven per cent

"Jobs.gov.hk now ranks number one in the overall job search category in Hong Kong, up from number three a year ago. While audiences to the site grew by 154 percent, page views on the site more than tripled, to make it the top ranking gov.hk site based on page views. Its August 2002 audience is slightly lower than its all-time high audience in May, June, and July 2002," added Steyn.