The latest quarterly report from IAB Australia shows that the national online advertising market continues to show a good rate of growth, with a year-on-year increase of 14%. Using data compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the online advertising expenditure in Australia for the first quarter of 2009 came to $439.5 million, the largest first quarter figure recorded so far.

The online advertising industry is expected to be impacted by the effects of the global financial crisis and the lowering of consumer and business confidence. The first quarter figures for 2009 were down 5% against the last quarter of 2008, yet this was anticipated due to the decline in activity that's usually seen after the pre-Christmas period. Despite this, the online advertising sector continues to maintain a strong year-on-year growth each quarter, unlike most other advertising media that are reporting negative year-on-year revenues.

The continued growth in this sector has been largely driven by the Search and Directories sector where the further migration of revenues into this sector saw it push past 50% of the total online advertising revenue for the first quarter. General Display advertising accounted for 24.9% of the total advertising expenditure for the first quarter, with a small decrease from the previous quarter as expected due to the trend of previous years. The Classifieds sector comprised 23.9% of the overall market with the impact of the economic slowdown having the greatest impact here, as the sector showed the first decrease in year-on-year expenditure since record keeping commenced in 2002.