The latest figures issued by the PricewaterhouseCoopers, revealed that advertisers spent $1.87 billion last year advertising their products and services online, a 9.4 per cent rise compared previous year, likely to break the $2 billion barrier by the end of this financial year.

However, earlier it was augured that advertisements on banners, around videos and in search engines would be nearly on medium by the end of 2009, cementing the web as Australia's biggest medium after newspapers and television.

The figures reveal that expenditure in the third quarter of 2009 to have climbed by 3.3 per cent on the same period in 2008, however, it rallied in the final quarter, reporting nearly 11 per cent growth year on year.

Yvette Mayer, National Digital Director at media agency Starcom quoted, ''We are seeing early signs of recovery - strong might be too strong a word and there's some bounce ack in some of the big areas, in particular finance and automotive”.

Jack Matthews, Chief Executive of Fairfax Digital - the digital arm of Fairfax Media, owner of The Age - said video advertising; usually 15-second spots screened before a video news report, were growing in volume and delivering the high yields.