The June 2006 edition of Business 2.0
magazine lists the 100
fastest-growing tech companies of 2006. One trend that has emerged is that online
advertising has replaced retailing as the Web sector that is most in demand. While in
2005 eBay was ranked 14 and there were two other retail companies in the top 20, this
year eBay is ranked 92 and its the only retail company in the entire top 100.
On the other hand there are now two online advertising companies in the top 10 in the 2006
list – ValueClick (#5) and aQuantive (#7). Digitas comes in at #54 and two Chinese
online advertising companies – Sohu.com (#32) and Sina (#52) – are in the top 100.
BusinessWeek notes
that the Internet ad market grew to $12.5 billion last year, a 30 percent increase from
2004. All other reports I’ve been reading indicate that there is much more growth to
come.
Digitas is currently the market
leader in online advertising. It creates online ad campaigns for big clients like
American Express and GM, “which together accounted for nearly half of ’05 sales”. The
second biggest player in this market is aQuantive.
The Chinese market is obviously one to
watch – “Web advertising is growing three times faster in China than in the States;
Sohu is the top seller, with rights to represent the ’08 Olympics in Beijing.”
