Big Four Portals Dominating Online Ad Spend
Though March is dominated by predictions of possible Final Four match-ups, the big four Internet portals leave no room for uncertainty when it comes to online advertising dominance.
Though hardly surprising, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN accounted for 57.4% of the total Internet ad spend in 2006. Google accounted for 25.0%, while Yahoo! had 18.3%, AOL had 7.5%, and MSN held 6.7% last year.
In 2005 these top four portals accounted for 53.7% of total online ad spend, and in 2004 this figure was 47.8%. This portion is expected to jump to 66.6% in 2007.
In 2006, Google gobbled up $4.1 billion in online advertising revenues, while Yahoo! raked in $3.0 billion, AOL took $1.2 billion, and MSN claimed $1.1 billion. Together, these four portals were responsible for $9.4 billion in online ad revenues in 2006.
Google is expected to grow 53.0% in 2007 to $6.3 billion, while Yahoo! is expected to grow 21.5% in 2007 to $3.6 billion. Meanwhile, AOL is expected to grow 43.5% to $1.8 billion, and MSN is expected to grow 20.7% in 2007 to $1.3 billion.
Though Google’s growth rate is slowing down considerably, it is still faster than any of the other big portals. All four portals are expected to see growth in 2007.
One of the primary reasons that these portals are maintaining their strength is the sheer fact that they have become so necessary and well-established on the Web. David Hellman, senior analyst at eMarketer, says that "As traditional marketers move more money online, they look for safety in established, mass-market brands, and portals are that."
He adds, "Other than Google, the large portals are at least 10 years old, and all four average 100 million or more unique visitors monthly."
Source:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004675
