Interesting perspective from Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch. After a full year of slowing growth, the combined ad revenues of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL actually picked up in Q4, a 3% rise compared to Q3. Combined revenues grew 8% on an annual basis. Search advertising may be making up for the continued weakness in display advertising.

  • Combined ad revenues totaled $8.5 billion in Q4, up from $8.2 billion in Q3 and $7.8 billion in Q4 ’07.
  • The sequential growth of their combined ad revenues ground to a halt in Q3 from 12.7% sequential growth in Q4 ’07 to 0.6% in Q3.
  • Google accounted for 65% of those revenues, up from 61% a year ago.
  • Yahoo’s 19.1% share of revenues went up quarter-over-quarter.
  • Microsoft’s $866 million in online revenues gave it a 10.2% share, up from 9.4%in Q3. AOL’s advertising revenues remained flat at $507 million, 6% share.