The Online Publishers Association (OPA) yesterday released its paid online content U.S. Market Spending Report covering Q1 and Q2 of 2003. The study, conducted by comScore Networks, determined that
consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to $748 million in the first half of 2003, an increase of 23 percent over the same period last year. While online paid content experienced its
first-ever quarter-to-quarter decline in Q4 of 2002, expenditures rebounded by 10 percent in Q1 2003 to $368 million, a trend that continued in Q2, with content sales reaching $380 million in that
quarter. The top three paid content categories - Personals/Dating, Business/Investment and Entertainment/Lifestyles - accounted for 65 percent of online content spending in the first half of 2003, up
from 61 percent in 2002. Online Personals/Dating remained the leading paid content category, accounting for nearly 30 percent of all paid content spending. U.S. consumers spent $214.3 million on
Personals/Dating content in the first half of 2003, up a robust 76 percent from the first two quarters of 2002. However, this percentage increase was eclipsed by the Personal Growth category, in which
spending nearly doubled from $20.8 million in the first half of 2002 to $41.4 million in the same period this year.
