RIO DE JANEIRO – E-commerce grew in Brazil in 2008 by 30 percent, compared with the year before, to 8.2 billion reais ($3.59 billion), according to a tally presented Wednesday by the private consulting firm E-bit.

The study found that 13 million Brazilians, around 6 percent of the population, said that they had made purchases online at least once in their lives.

E-bit president Pedro Guasti attributed the sales growth to the increase in confidence in the Internet among consumers and to the “professionalization” of many Web-based vendors.

The authors of the study also determined that women outpaced men in Internet purchases, accounting for 51 percent of the online sales made during the year.

The main purchases by women were of books and health and beauty products, while men most often bought electronic products and computer equipment.

The outlook for 2009, despite the global economic crisis, is also positive, and E-bit calculated that e-commerce will grow between 20 and 25 percent during the year to above 10 billion reais.

The director of the Brazilian Chamber of Electronic Commerce, Gerson Rolin, who was on hand for the release of the study, said that the Internet “is still very new” in Brazil, and so “there’s a lot of room to grow.”

Another study released Wednesday by U.S. technology giant Cisco Systems Inc. revealed that 16 percent of Brazilian homes have broadband Internet access.

The number of new users grew by 45.9 percent in 2008 to a total of 11.8 million lines, including both fixed and mobile Internet connections. EFE