More Swiss logging on to the world wide web

On-line shopping is gaining in popularity with the German-speaking Swiss Keystone

The number of people in German Switzerland using the Internet has increased sharply, according to a new survey. The study found that German speaking Swiss surf the web for an average of two hours a day.

The survey, published on Tuesday by the company Wemf AG, estimates that around 1.65 million people in German Switzerland use the Internet daily, either for work or private purposes, or both.

More than half have used the Internet for on-line shopping. The survey found that, in the past year, there was a 10 per cent increase in the number of on-line purchases, with 90,000 people confident enough to click their way through cyber-shopping aisles.

Over half of all items bought via the Internet are books. The second most popular items are CDs, accounting for 43 per cent of on-line sales. The Internet is also a popular tool for making hotel reservations, which account for 27 per cent of all on-line financial transactions.

While Internet-usage is gaining ground, one fifth of all German-speaking Swiss profess to have no interest in e-commerce.

Around 760,000 Internet-users have never bought anything over the web, and half of those say they never will. However, around 42 per cent of them said they expected to buy something on-line within a year.

Ninety per cent of the Internet users surveyed said they had no problem communicating their personal data over the web to a company they deemed reputable.

Search engines also proved popular, with 86 per cent of Internet-users saying they use these sites regularly. Electronic mail is also very popular. Ninety-six per cent of cyber-surfers use the E-mail service.

swissinfo with agencies