The most active online shoppers

9.36 million western Europeans are expected to make Web purchases in the last quarter of 1999, up from 4.62 million a year ago, according to the consultancy International Data Corp. (IDC). Predictions of total online spending vary from IDC_s conservative forecast of $5.4 billion for all of 1999, to as high as $17 billion -- a figure estimated by Electronic Commerce and Telework Trends, or ECATT, cited by the U.S. investment bank Robertson Stephens. German and British consumers are expected to be the most active online shoppers. Studies show they are more comfortable with the Internet and spend more time browsing than the French, Italian and Spanish. Germans spent an average of about five hours online in October, closely comparable to the 5.5 hours spent online by Americans, said a survey by research firm MMXi Europe BV. In Britain, the survey found people spent an average of four hours a month surfing at home; in France, about three hours. Of all people using the Internet in Europe, about 14 percent are expected to be web shoppers this Christmas, compared with 11 percent last year.