Description

The Internet industry is not immune from this recession. We expect significant revenue growth deceleration (in some cases negative growth) for Internet companies
in 2009. However, we continue to see strong long-term fundamentals with worldwide Internet penetration continuing to rise, newspaper and magazine businesses continuing to lose ad spend market share, and consumer dependence on mobile and Internet devices rising. We believe 4Q’08 and 1Q’09 will be the toughest financial quarters for Internet companies, as we expect limited credit availability, weaker foreign exchange currency rates, low consumer confidence, increased unemployment, and cautious corporate expense control to plague companies.
However, we expect to see the economy stabilize in 2Q and modestly improve in 2H’09. The J.P. Morgan economic forecast calls for (1.6)% Y/Y Real GDP growth in F’09, with 2H growth accelerating to (1.0)% Y/Y.