JEDDAH — The average e-commerce revenues in the Kingdom amounted to $4.930 billion during the year 2019, according to statistical figures compiled by the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Internet usage rate reached 95.7 percent while the Internet penetration rate stood at 89.5 percent during the year, the chamber report pointed out. According to the data, the Kingdom ranked 9th in terms of improvement in e-commerce growth among Asian countries whereas its rank in the United Nations e-commerce index is 49. The figures showed that 31.3 percent of e-payments were made through different cards, and that electronic payment for the retail sector and individuals by the end of July 2019 accounted for 36 percent of the total available payments, including cash. There has been an increase of 12.45 percent in the number of electronic stores in the Kingdom, reaching 28,676 stores in addition to creation of an e-commerce platform by the end of the first half of 2020, according to the commercial registry of the Ministry of Commerce. Meanwhile, the report of the economic website Statista showed that the compound annual growth rate of e-commerce revenues for the electronics and media category is expected to rise to 8.3 percent during the years 2020-2024, bringing the market size to $2.715 billion. The annual growth rate for the fashion category is expected to rise to 6.6 percent, bringing the market size to $2.658 billion, and for e-commerce for food and personal care products to rise to 6.1 percent, reaching the market size to $1.697 billion by 2024. According to the data, the number of Internet users for e-commerce (selling and buying) in Saudi Arabia reached 23.7 million in 2019. The user rate is expected to increase by 8 percent by the end of 2020, to reach 25.6 million users. By 2024, the number is expected to reach 33.6 million users, an increase of 42 percent from 2019. The report indicated that the most common goods that individuals purchased during 2019 were clothes, shoes, sporting goods with an average of 67 percent, then cosmetics with an average of 29.5 percent, followed by books and magazines with an average of 24 percent, then information technology services with an average of 16 percent while the average rate for the rest of the goods recorded a decrease of less than 10 percent, the report pointed out.
