The European online ad market is set for a significant recovery in the near future, according to Microsoft’s web portal, MSN. Executives of the internet company are confidently predicting a 25% growth in advertising in the next year across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
“We’ve reached the bottom,” said Judy Gibbons, vice-president of MSN EMEA in an interview with Reuters. “As advertising budgets remain tight the degree of enthusiasm people have for online advertising is increasing.”
Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice-president of MSN personal services and business estimates that the firm’s global advertising revenue totalled E500 million in 2001. Although the portal is yet to break even, Mehdi believes that automotive and financial service advertisers will spark an upsurge in sales.
“They’re spending between half a million dollars to several million dollars on the network already,” he said. “In EMEA, we think we can do better next year.”
These upbeat projections complement the findings of Forrester Research, which indicate that the European online advertising market will pick up in the next twelve months and be worth E6.4 billion by 2007 (see European Online Advertising Will Reach E6.4bn By 2007, Says Forrester).
