Although E-commerce in not limited to Internet alone, but still the Internet comprises a big share of it, as compared to other modes. This section is of utmost importance to ISPs and Cyber Cafe's. It will give them an insight to the Internet Usage in Pakistan- in Karachi particular.
Again this figure should not be misinterpreted as most Pakistanis have Net connections. Actually more than half of the people surveyed belonged to the second category & therefore the huge number should not be surprising.
Surprisingly, all participants had Modem Dialup connections, which is not a good sign.(cable connections are faster and more reliable.) It concludes that in Pakistan, people are not using Cable Connections. They are even unaware that such a service exist. It shows that the cable companies have not properly marketed their service.
And so there is a huge potential for cable companies.
There is one peculiar thing, charges. 25% people are satisfied with the tariff of their ISPs! Perhaps people are unaware that in Pakistan Internet charges are 40-50% higher than other countries of the region.
Worldwide, email is the most widely used aspect of the Internet. And so this world wide use closely match with the data we have collected in Pakistan.
More the Internet is used; quicker the E-commerce will boom. That's why we collected the information about the average weekly number of hours, our participant uses the Internet. Most people use 5-10 hours weekly, a good sign for e-companies. The statistic shows that we are heading towards 'Net Culture', but slowly.
Internet is widely used for the purpose of e-mails these days. Everyone has his own e-mail address these days, but are these e-mails safe? We mentioned 'Security' in the sense that no one else excepts the concerned persons read them.
Take this as 45% of the people *think* Internet is not a secure place. Then the number of people who consider Net unsecured for financial transactions there will certainly be more than 45%, not a good sign for e-companies.
A number of sites have been developed for this purpose. Including sites of large and popular newspapers and Television News channels. We collected the responses from the people whether they login on a Pakistani site like Dawn, Jang and, Jisaarat or a foreign site like CNN and BBC to get news.
It was found that Pakistanis turn to foreign news sites for getting news. It shows that the national news sites are not up to the standard the cyber-readers want them to be. It also shows that Pakistani news sites will not prove worthy of advertising to get Pakistani visitors.
50% of the people relate their not having connection to unavailability of proper guidance. So here is a problem for ISPs & a potential opportunity too.
It is interesting and at the same time encouraging to note that among those surveyed who didn't had a Net connection, there was not a single person who is reluctant to have one. More encouraging statistic is that 50% of such people plan to have internet connection this year.
