Taipei, May 17 (CNA) Taiwan's e-commerce market will soar over the next few years, as the online shopping sector here is developing rapidly, in line with global trends, the Institute for Information Industry said Saturday.

Growing at an annual rate of some 20 percent, revenue from Taiwan's e-commerce transactions reached NT$767.3 billion (US$25.7 billion) in 2013, and is expected to exceed NT$1 trillion by 2015, the Taipei-based institute said in a research note.

Mobile e-commerce has especially great potential, as nearly 18 percent of the Internet users in Taiwan surf the web via their mobile devices, including tablet computers and smartphones, according to the institute.

And some 30 percent of the public use their smartphones for commerce, communications and social networking, it said.

With the increasing popularity of handheld devices, "the trend of mobile e-commerce is inevitable," the institute said.

Foreign companies also see great potential in Taiwan's market. Google Inc. and the Taiwan unit of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. recently teamed up to grab more business opportunities in the e-commerce field here.

Under the partnership, Google will offer its AdWords keyword tools to boost website traffic and sales for over 2,800 Taiwanese online retailers on e-commerce portal Rakuten, which will provide its own consulting services to small and medium enterprises in Taiwan interested in using Google's service.

(By James Lee)
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