chinadotcom corporation First in China to Announce Independent Third Party Audit Results of Portal Pageviews
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PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit to Set Internet Industry Standards
For Consistency and Transparency
BEIJING, China, June 26 /PRNewswire/ --
chinadotcom corporation (NASDAQ:CHINA) (Website: www.corp.china.com), the
leading pan-Asian integrated Internet company, today became the first Internet
company in China to announce results of a portal pageview audit.
In a pioneering break from established Internet industry practice, whereby
each company uses its own standards and definitions to report pageviews,
chinadotcom commissioned the internationally recognized accounting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers ("PwC") to conduct an independent audit of its Chinese
Mainland portal, china.com. The audit allows for a fully independent analysis
of controls over the end-to-end measurement process used to capture and
produce key web site traffic and other web metrics. This practice, already
adopted in more mature Internet markets, is a major first step towards
establishing consistency and transparency in Asian Internet industry practices.
By using a stringent definition of "pageview" for a portal business model,
china.com portal's audited average daily pageviews was 10.6 million for the
period between May 19, 2000 and June 18, 2000. Contrary to the common
practice in China, which counts multiple frames as multiple pageviews, this
new stringent definition counts HTML generated documents containing multiple
frames as only ONE pageview. Additionally, this new definition of "pageview"
excludes 9 items often counted as part of established industry practice in
China, such as activities generated by popular search engines and known
personal spiders, all banner advertisements served internally by web servers,
and pop-up pages. *
Prior to commissioning the PwC Web Audit, chinadotcom corporation used its
internal standards and definitions of "pageviews" - which is still the
prevailing industry practice - to report the following pageview numbers:
Entire Portal Network (china.com, cww.com, hongkong.com, and taiwan.com)
Pageviews
-- December 1999 -- 4.2 million
-- April 2000 -- 16 million
-- of this total 16 million, 10.2 million came from china.com
The PwC audit, confirming 10.6 million pageviews for just one member of
chinadotcom's portal network, reconfirms the huge success of the china.com
portal over the first half of 2000.
Said Peter Yip, Chief Executive Officer of chinadotcom corporation, "I am
proud that we are continuing to lead the Internet industry in China by setting
new standards of transparency and consistency in the reporting of pageviews.
Whilst our own internal pageview estimates were calculated in a responsible
and conservative manner, this audit will provide further reassurance to
advertisers of the accuracy of our pageview numbers. I believe that future
audited pageview announcements will reflect the continuing rapid growth of the
china.com portal, supported by PwC Web Audit, and reconfirm china.com as the
fastest growing portal in China among the top five."
Said Andrew Watkins, PricewaterhouseCoopers Partner, Technology,
Information, Communications, and Entertainment, "One major problem with citing
site traffic figures has been that the definition of a term such as 'pageview'
means different things to different people. Thus, when comparing pageview
numbers reported by different portals, there has been no certainty that the
numbers are calculated in a common way. A key element of our audit is to
clearly lay out how a given dotcom uses such a term - this is essential if we
are to understand what the final numbers reported by these businesses actually
represent and have consistency in definition and methodology for reporting
pageview numbers among competing portals."
Said Ed Hsu, Chief Technology Officer of chinadotcom corporation, "The
recent major upgrade of our technology platform anticipated this rapid growth
of users of our sites, who have been flocking to our community and commerce
platform which include more than twelve '4U' products such as Points4U, Mail4U,
Search4U, Home4U, WAP4U, and Auction4U. We can easily accommodate further
explosive growth with our scalable architecture across our entire portal
network as other products and services such as Business4U, Space4U, and
Profile4U come online."
* Definition of "pageview" by chinadotcom corporation, endorsed by PwC for
purposes of china.com Portal Pageview Audit:
The opportunity for an HTML generated document to appear on a browser window
as a direct result of a user's interaction with "China.com" web-site and/or
its related channels and/services. Specifically, the following activities are
included or excluded from the pageview count:
Included -- HTML generated documents containing multiple frames are
counted as ONLY one pageview.
Included -- HTML generated documents arising from automatic "refresh"
program routine built in the web pages at different refresh
rates.
Exclusions -- Non-HTML generated documents including image or script files.
Exclusions -- Page view served from cache.
Exclusions -- Activities generated by popular search engines and known
personal spiders.
Exclusions -- Activities generated from the internal IP address.
Exclusions -- All banner advertisements served internally by web servers.
Exclusions -- HTML generated document resulting from "failed" browser
request, i.e., error pages
Exclusions -- Pop-up pages
Exclusions -- Splash and redirect pages
About chinadotcom corporation
chinadotcom corporation (NASDAQ:CHINA) is a leading pan-Asian integrated
Internet company offering web solutions, portal and online advertising
services. Through its three business units, chinadotcom is able to provide a
full range of Internet services around the Asia Pacific region that; 1) build
e-business strategies and solutions (Web Connection), 2) distribute content
via its portal network (china.com, cww.com, hongkong.com, and taiwan.com), and
3) sell services through online advertising (24/7 Media Asia).
Fuelling the growth of each of these three business units is a synergistic
investment strategy that leverages on chinadotcom's existing operational and
cost infrastructure.
By partnering with companies that have proven and successful track records,
such as America Online, Softbank, Trans Cosmos and Agence France Presse,
chinadotcom is well-positioned to create long term shareholder value through
its investments.
The company has over 1,600 employees in 24 offices across 10 markets,
including Japan, Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and
USA. In Mainland China, the company has 12 offices and over 500 employees.
For more information about chinadotcom corporation, please visit
www.corp.china.com .
About PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwcglobal.com) is the world's leading
professional services organisation. Drawing on the knowledge and skills of
150,000 people in 150 countries, we help our clients solve complex business
problems and measurably enhance their ability to build value, manage risk, and
improve performance. PricewaterhouseCoopers refers to the member firms of the
worldwide PricewaterhouseCoopers organisation.
For further information, please contact:
Susan Chan Janet Fung
chinadotcom corporation Fortune China Public Relations Ltd.
Tel: (852) 2961 2694 Tel: (852) 2838 1162
Fax: (852) 2571 0410 Fax: (852) 2834 5109
Email: susan.chan@hk.china.com Email: janet@fortunechina.com.hk
SOURCE chinadotcom corporation
-0- 06/26/2000
/CONTACT: Susan Chan of chinadotcom corporation, +852-2961-2694,
or fax, +852-2571-0410, or susan.chan@hk.china.com; or Janet Fung of Fortune
China Public Relations Ltd., +852-2838-1162, or fax, +852-2834-5109, or
janet@fortunechina.com.hk, for chinadotcom corporation/
/Web site: pwcglobal.com
corp.china.com /
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