Defying market expectations, expenditure on online advertisements in Australia grew 18.5% year-on-year. Unabated by the current poor economic environment sales increased to $1.8 billion at the end of the 2009 financial year according to figures from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). More specifically Australia's online search advertising market achieved a 30% growth rate during 2008-09, with both revenues per ad and the amount of search ads served continuing to rise.