Hitwise Press Release

Online Users Follow Up LPG Offer with Research on Automotive Websites

Melbourne, August 30 2006. According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, Australian motorists were quick to investigate online the Federal Government's subsidy offer on vehicle LPG conversions. Searches on the term, 'lpg' overtook references to 'fuel' or 'petrol' by a substantial margin for the week ending August 19, 2006.

There were 10,050 search term variations on the term, 'lpg' for the 12 weeks ending August 19, 2006. The most popular variations related to the Government offer included, 'lpg conversion', 'lpg rebate' and 'lpg subsidy'. Commercial references included, 'lpg cars', 'lpg injection' and 'lpg installers'.

LPG Australia ( www.lpgaustralia.com.au), which is a professional association for the LPG industry received the majority of this traffic with 26.2% share of searches on 'lpg'. Consumer-advocacy website, Choice ( www.choice.com.au) also received substantial traffic with 11.2% indicating the demand for educational resources on alterative sources to petrol by motorists.

Hitwise Industry Clickstream traffic indicates that consumers more than doubled the amount of research on automotive websites after visiting LPG-oriented sites in the Primary Industry and Resources category during the week of the LPG offer.

The Top 5 sites in the Hitwise Automotive - Manufacturers industry who received increased downstream traffic during this time period included Ford Australia (www.ford.com.au), Holden Australia (www.holden.com.au), Toyota Australia (www.toyota.com.au), Mitsubishi Motors Australia (mitsubishi-motors.com.au) and Honda Australia ( www.honda.com.au).

Consumer searches for 'used cars' also reached the highest point in 3 months during the week ending August 19, 2006, suggesting that motorists are seeking to maximise the full cost-saving potential of an lpg used car.

AU Share of Searches

AU Searches on 'LPG', 12 weeks ending August 19, 2006

Websites to receive traffic from 'lpg', 12 weeks ending August 19, 2006

Media Inquiries:

James Borg, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific

james.borg@hitwise.com 

+613 8530 2420

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.