Online advertising spending growth is strong, except for Latin America

Online advertising spending will have a strong growth from 2006 to 2009, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, where the increase is nearly 200 percent, according to Zenith Optimedia 2006 Advertising Expenditure Statistics.

Western Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and North America have relatively lower growth, ranging between 64 and 94 percent. The possible reason is that these regions were quicker to develop Internet infrastructure.

Latin America, however, has the lowest projected growth rate, under 30 percent. The worldwide average growth rate in online ad spending is nearly 75 percent.

In terms of Internet ad spending share, the Web is expected to take a larger portion of the ad spending pie as time goes on. Globally, online ad spending makes up 8.5 percent of overall in 2009, according to Zenith.

In North America and Western Europe, the Internet advertising share exceeds the world total, which indicates their status as leaders among online advertising spenders. Meanwhile, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe are building from much smaller bases, and Internet ad spending will make for a very small part of overall advertising.