Kolkata: First the good news. Internet usage in India has considerably grown in the last one year. Now the bad news. The number of online shoppers has reduced by over 50 per cent. These are the findings of the Global E-Commerce Report 2001, prepared by one of the worlds biggest research firms.

Internet penetration in Indias four metropolises (chiefly among the countrys upper class) increased from 10 per cent last year to 13 per cent this year. However, the number of online shoppers fell from 5 per cent to 2 per cent in the same period.

The results were part of a survey carried out simultaneously in 36 countries across the globe by TNS Interactive, the global Internet research arm of Taylor Nelson Sofres, the worlds fourth-largest market information company. The survey polled a sample size of 42,472 across 36 countries.

Says Taylor Nelson Sofres Mode managing director D P Basu: The biggest barrier to shopping online is the lack of a sense of security among Internet users. Taylor Nelson Sofres Mode is the Indian arm that carried out the research among the nationally representative survey.

The story is the same across the world, he says. Online security is the biggest single concern for those Internet users who have not shopped online. The Global E-Commerce Report highlights the fact that a very large proportion of Internet users do not feel comfortable shopping online. Across the world, 25 per cent of those who did not shop stated that they didnt want to give credit-card details over the Net.

In addition to security, the tangibility and physical experience of shopping offline were identified as barriers to online purchasing. Nineteen per cent of abstainers stated it was easier or more fun to buy in a store than over the Net.

The report also profiles the Indian Internet users by age. Thirty-eight of those accessing the Net are below 20 years of age, 25 per cent are between 20 and 29 years, 9 per cent are between 30 and 39, while those between 40 and 59 account for 8 per cent of the population. And 5 per cent of Internet users are above 60 years.

As far as Internet penetration goes, India is among the low penetration countries along with Indonesia, Ukraine, Lithuania, the Philippines, Latvia, Portugal, Poland, Turkey, Argentina, Hungary and Thailand.

For Indian dotcoms, the sad part of the story is that as many as 79 per cent of the Internet users have never shopped online and do not intend to in the near future.