02:42 PM EST June 12, 2003
The Associated Press
NEW YORKU.S. online-advertising revenue showed a healthy increase in the fourth quarter of 2002, breaking a two-year declining trend, according to revised numbers compiled by an industry trade group.
Online-ad revenue, which includes banner ads, paid search listings, pop-up ads and other formats, totaled an estimated $1.58 billion for the fourth quarter of 2002, up 8.9 percent from $1.45 billion in the third quarter, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau - the first quarter-to-quarter uptick since the fourth quarter of 2000. That represents a small revision upward from preliminary numbers the IAB released in April showing fourth-quarter revenue of $1.5 billion. Total spending for 2002 was $6.01 billion.
"It's good news, verifiable good news," said Greg Stuart, the trade group's president.
The revised numbers, released Thursday, come two days after Goldman Sachs analysts issued a research note revising their forecast upward for 2003 online-advertising spending to $5.99 billion from an earlier forecast of $5.47 billion. They based the upgrade in part on upbeat comments they heard from new-media companies at an Internet conference hosted by Goldman in San Francisco last month.
The industry remains below its revenue levels at the height of the boom. According to the revised IAB numbers, ad revenue in fourth quarter 2002 was down 3.7 percent from the year-earlier period, and off 26 percent from the fourth-quarter 2000 revenue peak of $2.12 billion.
Advertising spending in all media slipped during the economic downturn, but Web publishers took an especially big hit from the dot-com bust, in which many of their clients went out of business. The prolonged ad slump begin to subside about a year ago, as revenue stabilized, and there are signs that the recovery has continued so far this year.
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