Wed, Jan 14, 2004 page11

• Yam sees bright future for online adverts

  OPTIMISM A survey by the Internet portal showed renewed interest in Internet advertising, and Yam believes the market could be worth NT$2.1 billion this year

  • By Jessie Ho / STAFF REPORTER
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  A local Internet portal said yesterday that it predicts rising revenues in both advertising and wireless services this year, as the sector emerges from post-Internet-boom obscurity.

  "I estimate that revenues of online advertising in Taiwan will reach NT$2.1 billion this year, a 40 percent growth from last year," Bobby Yuan (袁棟), vice president of Yam Digital Technology Co (蕃薯藤數位科技), told reporters yesterday.

  Yam Digital runs the nation's third largest Internet portal, www.yam.com, with about 160,000 visitors per day.

  With the strong revival of the Internet business, online advertising, which has been steadily recovering from the burst of the dotcom bubble, is expected to hit NT$5 billion in the next three or four years, Yuan said.

  Yuan made the robust prospect for the industry based on the fact that more people are spending their time online and conducting transactions over the Internet, as well as a rising click-through rate for online ads.

  According to a survey released by Yam Digital yesterday, about 9 percent of online users frequently click on online ads when surfing the Internet, and 77 percent occasionally hit the ads. Meanwhile, 14 percent of Web surfers would refer to online ads when making a purchase decision, and 69 percent would once in a while.

  "A precise target strategy is key for Internet ads to effectively reach users, which means feeding useful information to the right recipients," said Yam marketing director Jonathan Lai (賴志偉). "That's also the reason behind the high click-through rate."

  When further analyzing the forms of online ads welcomed by users, the survey found that animation ads topped the chart, with 22 percent of people considering them appealing. To the company's surprise, banner ads, the most common form of Web ads, were the second favorite.

  Although banners are not necessarily a means to luring users to move their mouse, they have proved effective in boosting brand name awareness, Lai said.

  In addition to Internet ads, Yam Digital also hopes to see revenues generated from the expanding use of short message services (SMS). Yuan said the company expects more users will visit their Web site via SMS -- a brief text messages sent on mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs).

  "In our survey, SMS in Taiwan mostly concentrates on exchange of messages among friends and is not too much involved in business activities like the situation in China," Yuan said.

  According to the Yam Digital survey, only 36 percent of online users made use of SMS last year. Twenty-one percent said they had no demand for such a service, while 27 percent had no idea of what SMS was, the survey showed.

  "Many in Taiwan are already aware of the business potential of this sector when referring to the case in China, but we just have to wait for the fundamental adjustment of the fees," Yuan said.

  In China last year, it is estimated that more than 150 billion short messages were sent by mobile phone users, raking in over 15 billion yuan for businesses.
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