Australia – Australia’s online advertising market has continued to show strong positive growth, recording impressive year on year growth of 14 percent according to the latest figures released by IAB Australia in its Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER) which is compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Online advertising expenditure in Australia for the first-quarter 2009 (three months ended 31 March 2009) totalled $439.5 million, the largest first-quarter recorded. Combined with the record 4th and 3rd quarters of 2008, the results show an impressive 22 percent growth when compared to the same quarters the previous financial year. The online advertising industry has been impacted by the effects of the global financial crisis; and local consumer and business confidence and activity, with Q1 showing a drop of five percent from Q4 2008. But unlike most other advertising media that are reporting negative year-on-year revenues, online advertising has maintained strong year-on-year growth each quarter. An expected migration of revenues into search and directories saw this sector pushing past 50 percent of total online advertising revenue for the first quarter. General Display advertising and Classifieds advertising accounted for 24.9 percent and 23.9 percent of the total advertising expenditure for the first-quarter 2009 respectively.