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Deeper Consumer Relationships. Yahoo! has a great history and some incredible attributes, but one asset stands above everything else: our vast base of loyal users. I have a very simple perspective on this: Create compelling content and more innovative products and services, and users will keep coming and stay longer, bringing more value to Yahoo! and our advertisers and partners. Consequently, as our global user base grows in quality and financial and strategic value, we anticipate being able to successfully monetize one of Yahoo!'s most important core assets.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Yahoo! is the most visited global Internet destination. In 2002 our global audience grew to approximately 213 million users, while Yahoo!'s active registered users (those that log in with a username and password) grew twice as fast to approximately 101 million, delivering remarkable 37 percent year-over-year growth. An important metric that shows our relationships with users are in fact getting deeper is the average time spent on our network, which rose 10 percent in 2002.
While the majority of Yahoo!'s services remain advertising-supported, our deepening consumer relationships have aided our substantial progress in further monetizing our global user base through premium offerings such as personals, mail, games and access. In fact, the fastest growing subset of users on Yahoo! is those that pay for Yahoo!'s various premium services. At the end of 2002, we had amassed 2.2 million unique paying relationships. As consumer attitudes toward paid services on the Internet evolve and broadband penetration increases, I believe Yahoo! is well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity.
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