14 DAY TRIAL // The economy is still in a dire state and companies are firing people left and right but there are signs of recovery in some areas particularly in online advertising. After years and years of sustained growth, online advertising revenue actually declined in the first half of this year. But in the third quarter, the major players in online marketing saw a small bump in revenue of 1.2 percent according to a report by TechCrunch.
The combined revenue of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL rose to a little over $8 billion in the third quarter, a 1.2 percent increase over last year. These companies account for a significant percentage of the online advertising market so they are a good indicator of the overall state of the sector.
The numbers can be a bit misleading though, as from the four only Google saw an increase in revenue in the third quarter while the other three declined or stayed flat. But since Google, as in so many other areas, dominates online advertising, it was enough to bring the overall numbers up. Google posted some rather positive results for Q3 bringing in more than $5.7 billion in revenue from advertising, which makes up the vast majority of its revenue, the highest number to date.
One reason why the company has taken a smaller hit is because it relies more on search advertising than the other companies while display advertising has always been a tough nut to crack for Google. This might have been somewhat of a disadvantage in the past but it saved it from losing too much revenue this year.
Yahoo has managed to stay at pretty much the same level as in the last quarter at $1.37 billion but well below last year's results when it managed to bring in $1.56 billion. Microsoft, now without Razorfish, saw worse results compared to the previous quarter, as well as year over year, getting $490 million compared to $540 million in Q2 and $520 million in Q3 2008. Finally, AOL was at about the same level as in the last quarter, $415 million compared to $419 million, but below the $507 million it earned last year.