Digital Media's Slowest Revenue Quarter Ever: Report
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Strategy Analytics has done a simple comparison of revenues from a selected group of online media/Internet companies in Q208 (what it calls its "Digital Media Index"), and shows that revenue growth for these companies slowed to 0.8 percent quarter-on-quarter in Q208, down from 3.3 percent in the previous quarter and 3.4 percent in the same period last year. Google (NSDQ: GOOG), up 3.5 percent quarter-on-quarter, was the only one of the five largest companies that went against the general trend.
Some other conclusions:
-- Fox Interactive Media (NYSE: NWS) was the fastest growing digital media company, with 55.6 percent growth in the last 12 months
-- Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes was down 7.0 percent quarter-on-quarter. However this decline is consistent with seasonality for iTunes, and is in line with a 6.9 percent drop in the same period the previous year.
The conclusion: "It seems that not even an emerging sector such as digital media is immune to the global economic downturn." Oh wait, we were part of the economy? Who knew
| Global Digital Media Index, Top 5 Companies (US$ Million) | Q2 '07 | 2007 | Q1 '08 | Q2 '08 |
$3,872 | $16,594 | $5,186 | $5,367 | |
| Change % | 5.7% | 10.8% | 7.4% | 3.5% |
| Yahoo! | $1,698 | $6,969 | $1,818 | $1,798 |
| Change % | 1.6% | 1.9% | -0.8% | -1.1% |
| Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Online Services | $688 | $2,845 | $843 | $838 |
| Change % | 10.4% | 9.1% | -2.3% | -0.6% |
| Apple 'Music Related Products and Services' (iTunes) | $608 | $2,670 | $881 | $819 |
| Cange % | -6.9% | 7.0% | 9.0% | -7.0% |
| AOL (NYSE: TWX) Advertising | $522 | $2,231 | $552 | $530 |
| Change % | -4.9% | 2.5% | -11.0% | -4.0% |
| Digital Media Index (Quarter-on-Quarter) | 110 | n/a | 138 | 139 |
| Change % | 3.4% | n/a | 3.3% | 0.8% |
| Digital Media Index (Trailing Twelve Months) | 117 | 135 | 145 | 153 |
| Change % | 7.6% | 7.8% | 6.8% | 5.8% |
Source: Strategy Analytics
By Rafat Ali