Internet economy expected to grow to $4.2 trillion in 4 years

The world’s G-20 Internet economy is expected to grow to $4.2 trillion in the next five years.  This is close to double the value it was in 2010 which was $2.3 trillion.

The biggest factor in this growth is the number of people and businesses that will be using the internet for commerce.  Starting with 1.9 billion consumers in 2010 to an estimated 3 billion in 2016, this will drive the G-20 Internet economy skyward.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) announced the publication of a report titled “The Digital Manifesto: How Companies and Countries Can Win in the Digital Economy.”  The announcement of the report was made at the Annual Conference of the World Economic Forum which was jointly hosted by Google and BCG.

Bacically, BCG is saying that businesses will be transformed in the way they are structured.  They will all have to adapt to the proliferation of Internet use by their present and future customer base.

David Dean, a senior partner at BCG and one of the authors of The Digital Manifesto was quoted as saying “No company or country can afford to ignore this development. Every business needs to go digital. The ‘new’ Internet is no longer largely Western, accessed from your PC. It is now global, ubiquitous, and participatory.”

Major changes the businesses will have to cope with include the emergence of Internet use as an everyday part of life and changes in people’s daily use of mobile devices.  When people throughout the G-20 markets have instant access to the Internet from their personal smartphone, they can make decisions immediately that would previously have had to wait until they went home and accessed the Internet from their PC or laptop at their home or business.

In my book, faster decisions mean more opportunity for sales and economic growth.  Do you agree or disagree?