E-commerce in Brazil, like many other Internet activities in that country, is maturing quickly. Between the first half of 2005 and 2008, e-commerce revenues as reported in e-bit’s “Web Shoppers” study nearly quadrupled to reach BRL3.8 billion ($2.2 billion). According to Valor Economico, in 2007 alone the market expanded by 43%. In terms of the number of individuals buying online, the figures are almost as dramatic, with 2.6 million buyers in 2003 rising to 9.5 million in 2007.

More likely than not, adult Internet users in Brazil have purchased something online, according to a December 2007 study by Symantec.

Brazil’s 79% of users who have purchased online is in the upper reaches of worldwide rates, comparable to such advanced Internet players as Japan (82%), the UK (79%) and Germany (78%). In contrast, only 63% of US Internet users have made an online purchase. Simply put, Brazilians who use the Internet tend to use it for everything, including e-commerce.

Online buyers in Brazil are huge media consumers. Books, magazines and newspapers ranked as the top e-commerce categories with a 17% market share in 2007, according to e-bit.

Almost one-half (49.47%) of Brazil’s online buyers use a credit card to make their purchases, versus 39.06% who use a banking ticket to buy online. Other payment methods, including debit or electronic transfer, and payment on delivery, were each favored by less than 10% of respondents to an Ipsos Public Affairs survey.

Females, who make up almost one-half of Internet users in Brazil, are a key factor driving the explosion of e-commerce. A study from e-bit reported in Business News Americas found that online transactions by females increased nearly 10% since 2000.

The BBC has unveiled plans to spend £68m by 2013 on a network of 65 websites covering the whole country that will provide local on-demand video news. The plans were unveiled today as the BBC Trust launched a public value test and consultation on the controversial plan to expand the corporation’s local online operation, which faces stiff opposition from rival media organisations including regional newspaper publishers.

The proposals submitted to the BBC Trust by the corporation’s management would expand the corporation’s current network of BBC Local websites and add more depth of content, including video.

The corporation’s latest proposals would take the number of BBC Local websites from 60 to 65.

The expanded BBC Local network would include 47 for England, six for Scotland and two for Northern Ireland. Wales will have five sites, although as each will be in both English and Welsh this equates to 10 overall - taking the total to 65.

BBC management has forecast the expanded BBC Local network’s operating budget to be £23m by 2012-2013, growing incrementally over five years.

This works out at the equivalent of around £350,000 a year for each of the 65 BBC Local sites.

The BBC said its main bbc.co.uk site - which has a budget of £114m - currently has an average of 16.6 million users a month out of a total UK internet population of 33 million.

Hewlett-Packard agrees to buy IT services and pioneering outsource firm Electronic Data Systems, Mark Hurd’s biggest acquisition since taking the helm of Hewlett-Packard in 2005. The deal could spark more consolidation in the technology outsourcing sector.

The companies said Tuesday their boards had unanimously approved the deal, in which EDS  shareholders would get $25 per share. That is a premium of almost 25 percent over what EDS  had been trading on Friday. Word of the talks emerged Monday. 

It would be HP’s biggest deal in six years. 

HP is the world’s largest maker of personal computers, while Texas-based EDS provides technology services to the governments and companies around the world. 

The sale is expected to close in the second half of this year and more than double HP’s revenue from services, which was $16.6 billion in 2007. EDS had $22.13 billion in revenue last year. 

Their combined services business would have 210,000 employees - although some analysts expect HP would trim jobs - and operations in more than 80 countries. 

HP said the business would be based at EDS’ headquarters in Plano, Texas, and led by EDS chairman and Chief Executive Ronald A. Rittenmeyer. 

HP said it expects the deal would produce “significant” cost savings and add to earnings by next year. 

Palo Alto-based HP and EDS had said Monday that they were in “advanced discussions” about a possible combination without providing additional details. 

In Tuesday’s announcement, the companies said the deal would have an enterprise value of $13.9 billion without defining what that included. But based on 502.6 million EDS shares outstanding as of April 25, the acquisition would be worth $12.57 billion. 

HP ended January with nearly $10 billion in cash and has a market value of about $115 billion. 

If the deal is completed, it would be HP’s biggest acquisition since it bought Compaq Computer Corp. for $19 billion in 2002. That acquisition paved the way for HP to supplant Dell  Inc. as the world’s largest PC maker. 

Buying EDS would give HP more tools to challenge IBM  Corp. in the lucrative technology services field. HP already has replaced IBM as the world’s largest technology company, based on revenue. 

The demand for data management and technology consulting services has steadily grown during the past two decades as the automation of corporate America and the rise of the Internet prompted more businesses to hire contractors to help run their computer software and hardware. 

IBM’s technology services division brought in $54 billion in revenue last year, accounting for half of the company’s total sales. Combined, EDS and HP’s technology services division had about $39 billion in revenue last year. 

In one of its biggest previous attempts to expand its technology services, HP attempted to buy PricewaterhouseCoopers’ consulting division in 2000. IBM wound up buying the unit instead. 

HP has been on a roll since it hired Mark Hurd as chief executive three years ago. Propelled by earnings growth that has consistently exceeded analyst expectations, the company’s stock price has more than doubled since Hurd’s arrival. 

Acquiring EDS could yield more government work for HP, which had about $500 million in prime federal contracts in fiscal 2007. EDS is far better connected, with deals worth about $2.5 billion - putting it among the top 10 among government technology contractors. 

Combined, HP and EDS still would lag significantly behind government contractors like Lockheed Martin  Corp. and Boeing  Co. 

As in many corporate marriages, cultural clashes between HP and EDS could ruin the union, said AMR  Research analyst Dana  Stiffler. “Palo Alto versus Plano wrangling will destroy any short-medium term benefit unless there’s a strong integration roadmap,” she predicted. 

HP earned $7.3 billion on $104 billion in revenue last year while EDS made $716 million on $22.1 billion in revenue. 

EDS has been linked with possible deals previously, including a reported interest by Deutsche Telekom late last year and Dell before that. No suitors ever confirmed reports that they were talking. 

Former IBM salesman H. Ross Perot started EDS in 1962 to help run other companies’ computer systems - a specialty generally known as information-technology or IT services. 

Perot sold EDS to General Motors  Corp. for $2.5 billion in 1984 and eventually became so disillusioned with how that deal worked out that he sold his remaining EDS shares to the automaker so he could start a new rival service bearing his name. 

An outspoken billionaire, Perot became even more famous for running for U.S. president in 1992 and 1996. GM spun off EDS as an independent company in 1996 and remained its largest customer. 

EDS was riding high at the start of the decade, despite the dot-com bubble’s bursting. But in late 2002, earnings shortfalls led to investor lawsuits, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, the ouster of the chief executive, and a sharp drop in the stock price.  The company lost $1.7 billion in 2003 but gradually righted itself under CEO Michael Jordan , a retired CBS  and Westinghouse CEO. He fixed some money-losing contracts, including a multibillion-dollar deal to build a communications network for the Navy and Marine Corps, and began cutting costs by sending thousands of jobs to low-cost countries such as India. 

Although he has not seen any signs to suggest EDS has been looking for a buyer, Jefferies & Co. analyst Joseph Vafi said the company’s board might have decided a sale would create a quicker payoff for shareholders than continuing to try to grow the company in the highly competitive technology services industry. 

Under Hurd’s leadership, HP bought business software maker Mercury Interactive Corp. for $4.9 billion in 2006 and last year paid $1.7 billion for data management service Opsware Inc., which had sold a large chunk of its operations to EDS in 2002. 

AP Business Writers Jennifer Malloy in New York, David Koenig in Dallas and Dibya Sarkar in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report. 

Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard says the deal has been unanimously approved by both companies’ boards. 

It is expected to close in the second half of this year.