MANILA - Stakeholders in the local e-commerce industry are eyeing more mobile-web partnerships as a major growth driver for the industry over the next couple of years.

At the E-commerce Summit 2009, G-Xchange president Rizza Maniego-Eala said online businesses are looking at mobile instruments such as the G-Cash payment system, especially with the massive amount of Filipino subscribers.

"It's a big market in terms of opportunity. Globe has 25 milllion subscribers, and so far only 1.1 million of these are subscribed to G-cash," she said.

Digitalfilipino.com founder Janette Toral agreed, pointing out that the recent calamities showed the coverage and influence that the mobile phone sphere had on Filipinos.

"Mobile is really a growth area. With 'Ondoy' and 'Pepeng,' you just saw the surge of people sending money, sending messages through the mobile medium and online. Now we only have to address awareness, and encourage more Filipinos to embrace the technology. But we're getting there," she said.

E-commerce has been touted as the next big thing for local businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, with the online medium presenting a range of options and wider reach for advertising and marketing campaigns.

Eala stresses that mobile as a medium of transacting online and receiving payments is attractive to Filipinos, especially since credit card penetration remains at single-digit levels in the country.

"The Philippines remains to be a cash society, we need to educate the people in money transfer methods and we need to grow in the cash in cash out process," she stressed.

Meanwhile, Chito Bustamante, chief executive of mobile-internet SMS provider Chikka, said that aside from the usual security qualms about transacting online, data rates and Internet fees are also seen as stumbling blocks for the e-commerce industry.

"Data rates need to be more affordable," he said.

Even the Department of Trade and Insdustry admitted that much is needed to be done both by the private sector and government to find more avenues to ramp up the industry's growth.

"The take up is not so much yet, but it's starting to take-off faster compared to previous years. Some are even projecting a peak by 2012," said DTI supervising director for E-commerce Maria Lourdes Yaptinchay.

She added that lack of data about the industry is also preventing potential entrepreneurs from exploring the medium. But Yaptinchay said the National Statistics Office is conducting an ICT survey related to e-commerce, results of which are expected to be out by 2011.