Sharat Digumarti in Calcutta on Wednesday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, March 20: The Indian e-commerce industry is expected to grow over six times to touch Rs 27,000 crore, or $5 billion, by 2015, eBay India said today.

At present, the e-commerce industry is at a nascent stage with a size of about Rs 4,200 crore, or $800 million.

“Globally, the e-commerce industry was valued at $763 billion in 2008. This is projected to grow to $1.3 trillion this year. In India, there were 61 million visitors to shopping websites and 8 million online shoppers. Our estimate is that by 2015, e-commerce in India will be about Rs 27,000 crore,” said Sharat Digumarti, director (APAC revenue management), eBay India Pvt Ltd.

He was speaking at the launch of the fifth edition of the eBay census 2012, which is an in-house research analysis of online buying and selling trends in India.

Digumarti said Asia had the potential to emerge as a hub of activity in the domain.

“For eBay, in 2012, gross merchandise sales reached $67 billion and $13 billion came from mobile commerce. There are 112 million active eBay users globally and 5 million in India. According to data from the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the industry is growing at 70 per cent and our growth has been in line with it,” he said.

The eBay census 2012 has ranked New Delhi as the top e-commerce hub closely followed by Mumbai, Jaipur, Bangalore and Chennai. Calcutta ranks eighth.

The study states that India has 4,306 e-commerce hubs from all 28 states and seven Union Territories, a 30 per cent increase from 2011.

Cheaper tablet and mobile devices have also enabled shopping on-the-go and shoppers have increased spending to buy international products. A growing number of women shoppers have led to lifestyle categories selling more.

Top five items sold in Calcutta include camera tripods, emergency lights, key chains, handbags and tablets.

Maharashtra emerged as the top state with most transactions followed by Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Top brands traded are Samsung, Apple, Sony, Nokia and Sandisk.