Over the last one year, the ICE (information technology, communications and entertainment) age has truly caught up with India. Following are some of the most promising trends…

…E-commerce and Mcommerce tick

Air and rail tickets worth an estimated Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) are sold online in India everyday. A jewellery piece sells every 5 minutes, a mobile handset every 8 minutes and a car every 9 hours on eBay.

Business worth over Rs 5,000 crore {Rs 50 billion (domestic and international)} materialised through leads generated by Indiamart.com during the last one year.

Online shopping is now prevalent in nearly 2,000 towns and cities (including tier-II cities like Surat, Ankleshwar, Sholapur, Kottayam, Faridabad and Bhopal).

Maharashtra tops the list, while Kerala is yet to pick up.

Recent Internet and Mobile Association of India figures estimate the size of the domestic e-commerce market to touch Rs 2,300 crore {Rs 23 billion (around 10 per cent of the organised Indian retail market)} by 2006-07 - a 95 per cent rise over last year's figure of Rs 1,180 crore (Rs 11.8 billion) and a more than 300 per cent rise over the figure of 2004-05. Goods sold online include books, electronic gadgets, air and rail tickets, apparel, gifts, computer peripherals, audio and VCDs….