The share of e-commerce of total trade grew from 1% in 2001 to 6% in 2011, while by 2020 it will expand to 20%, the founder of DST Global, Yuri Milner, has predicted.
"By 2030 the share of e-commerce will reach 50%," he said speaking at the 9th Yalta Annual Meeting on September 14, 2012.
Milner said that such growth in e-commerce will lead to the loss of 40 million jobs in the retail sector, but they could be offset via the creation of new innovation jobs.
He said that apart from e-commerce, two key topics are quickly developing the Internet: platforms providing a scale model and free distribution.
He took Amazon.com, which is used by two million independent traders to sell their goods, and Facebook and Apple, which provided opportunities for the work of hundreds of thousands of designers and applications.
Commenting on the role of free Internet, Milner named Google and Facebook as an example, which reached 500 million of clients in 14 and 8 years respectively, while it took 50-125 years for globally famous companies as Coca-Cola, Visa or McDonalds to achieve such results.
He added that revolution changes would be brought to medicine and education by the Internet, which will considerably expand access to them for many people.
Milner said that $40 trillion would be invested in the digital infrastructure from 2005 to 2015.
He said that in recent years, attention to and investment into the fundamental and experimental sciences has been falling, and this situation has to change.
The 9th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled "Ukraine and the World: Addressing Tomorrow’s Challenges Together" took place in Yalta at the Livadia Palace, Ukraine, from 13-16 September 2012.
