Net ad sales recovering from slump

The nation's Internet advertising market is rebounding, with major Internet portals Yahoo-Kimo (雅虎奇摩) and Yam.com (蕃薯藤) both reporting roughly 20 percent growth in ad sales for the first half of this year.

"We have seen a significant jump in our ad sales in the first half," Maureen Wu (吳曉嵐), a marketing executive at Yahoo-Kimo, told the Taipei Times yesterday. "Actually, we attracted more than 100 new clients to our site during that period of time."

The US-based venture estimates that more than 80 percent of its sales this year will come from advertising.

Local player Yam.com also said the nation's Internet market is gradually recovering from last year's severe downturn in ad spending.

"For the first half of this year, our advertising sales jumped 20 percent over last year and the outlook is promising," Chen Jen-ran (陳正然), Yam's CEO, said early last month.

Chen said advertising would account for up to 60 percent -- or NT$300 million -- of Yam's sales this year.

A market researcher the Market Intelligent Center (MIC, 市場情報中心) said that compared to last year, Internet portals are poised to do well this year.

"We estimate that this year Taiwan's Internet advertising market may hit NT$1.1 billion -- a 34 percent jump over last year's NT$830 million," analyst Chen Jia-shien (陳佳賢) said.

Of that amount, more than 80 percent of sales are expected to be generated at portal sites.

Chen said Web ad sales were recovering in step with the economy. "Companies are more willing to spend on marketing when their business outlook is good," the researcher said.

In addition, with an increasing number of users using high-speed Internet connections such as ADSL, Web ads that employ multimedia features are becoming more attractive to advertisers, Chen said.

Over the next year or two, Web advertising will continue to remain a major source of income for Internet portals, he said.

Meanwhile, local Internet portal PC Home Online (網路家庭) announced Tuesday that it will call off plans to charge for its e-mail service.

"Starting from Aug. 5, each PC Home user can have 10 megabytes of space for e-mail for free," said Vicky Tseng (曾薰儀), public relations manager at PC Home Online.

MIC's Chen said he wasn't surprised by PC Home's move. The researcher said the higher traffic resulting from the free e-mail service would make the Web portal more attractive to clients.

"Accessing e-mail is the most common activity for Internet users," Chen said. "Free e-mail has become a `must' service the public expects portal sites to offer."

According to NetValue, a Internet research center, more than 70 percent of Taiwanese have e-mail accounts. Each user receives or sends an average of 71.6 e-mails per month.

Major Internet portals such as Yahoo-Kimo, Yam.com, Sina.com (新浪網) and Microsoft MSN provide free e-mail accounts.

Tseng said PC Home estimates that about 40 percent of its sales this year will come from selling Web advertising, while the remainder will come from e-commerce.

"Of course, we'd like to boost our advertising sales, since this sector's profit margins are higher compared to online shopping sales," she said.