According to Nielsen//NetRatings, since March 2002 has grown its audience by 160% to 6.8m Britons, while in the same period 's audience increased by 28% to 6.1m. Internet growth for the same period was 7%.
In March 2002, eBay had 4.6m page views in total. A year later, this number had rocketed to 1.1bn, making it one of the few websites to achieve a billion page views in one month.
Tim Roe, senior international analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, said: "This is a very important development as the performance of the e-commerce category is one of the key indicators of the health of the internet in general. The growth of eBay and Amazon, as two of the most profitable and successful players in this sector, is a significant sign of the potential of using the internet to reach and sell to customers."
EBay users spend an average of one hour and 11 minutes on the site, as they return to the site to check the status of items they are selling or bidding for.
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