Monday, March 26, 2001

eRecruiting Firms Show Impressive Growth

The top 10 worldwide erecruiting firms collectively achieved an impressive 232% growth rate between 1999 and 2000, according to a new IDC bulletin. Ranked by revenue generated from erecruiting services, the top five worldwide erecruiting providers are:

1. Monster.com
2. Futurestep
3. HotJobs.com
4. Headhunter.net
5. dice.com

"The leaders in the erecruiting market have established strong brand awareness and customer loyalty through the delivery of quality service," said Christopher Boone, analyst for IDC's eRecruiting program. "Moving forward, leaders will continue to educate the market about their services and provide measurable results that enable customers to improve their recruiting process on a continuous basis."

Demonstrating that erecruiting is an increasingly worldwide market opportunity, Western Europe is emerging as the second largest market for erecruiting services as evidenced by three European firms on the list. IDC also identifies a number of companies that are poised to challenge worldwide leaders.

Emerging eRecruiting Market Opportunities
Through examination of the top 10 players, IDC sees emerging market opportunities for erecruiting firms. A subset of these opportunities includes:

- Market demands are shifting to end-to-end services.
- Skills assessment has become a key factor of differentiation.
- Contingent workforce services are the next frontier of the erecruiting market landscape.

"The exceptional growth rate of erecruiting market leaders demonstrates that the market is still in the early adoption phase," said Boone. "We believe new players will continue to enter the market to address all stages of the recruiting continuum.

Online Travel Industry Captures $1.2 Billion in January
Nielsen//NetRatings, an Internet audience measurement service, and Harris Interactive, a global leader in Internet-based market research, today reported that the online travel industry hit $1.2 billion in sales in January, nearly a third of all eCommerce transactions, which were $3.8 billion. This marks a dollar increase of 29 percent from six months ago when consumers spent $943 million on online travel in August 2000, setting the highest level since monthly surveys began last April.

From last January to January 2001, Nielsen//NetRatings found that online shopping trips to the top five travel sites from work and home jumped 42 percent to 22 million visits.

"Online travel spending grew 17 percent to more than $1.2 billion in January, while all other forms of consumer eCommerce declined from their hectic holiday levels," said Sean Kaldor, vice president of eCommerce at NetRatings.

Findings from the Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris Interactive eCommercePulse, collected from an online survey of 50,000 Web users in January, found that Travelocity held the largest share of online travel buyers or 18 percent. Southwest followed with 14 percent of all online travel purchasers. Expedia’s share was 11 percent. Priceline (nine percent) and Delta (eight percent) rounded out the top five rankings.

Offline Dollars Generated By Online Shoppers
Online travel sites stimulated another $681 million in offline revenue in January. These sales were generated by online operations, but purchased through the phone, fax or in-person.

"Online travel is one of the more efficient vertical industries online, routinely completing 64 percent of transactions on the Web while many other product categories see only 30 to 40 percent of revenues actually transacted through the cost-efficient online interface," said Kaldor.

"Online travel sites should not be evaluated purely by their Web dollar sales figure alone. Many people use the Internet to price comparison shop, and prefer purchasing their tickets by speaking directly with a travel agent," continued Kaldor.

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