Record Online Retail Site Visits on Cyber Monday 2009

Akamai Net Usage Index for Retail shows continued year-over-year growth in visits to online retail websites

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - December 01, 2009 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) today released data from its Akamai Net Usage Index for Retail chronicling real-time traffic to online shopping sites.

Measuring the impact of "Cyber Monday," Akamai's index tracks visitors per minute to an aggregated group of more than 270 global online retail sites. Today, Akamai powers 90 of the top 100 e-retailers listed by Internet Retailer*, including 19 of the top 20 apparel and accessories retailers and 12 of the top 15 electronics retailers.

As of approximately 11:30 a.m. ET yesterday, global retail traffic, as measured by the Akamai Index, had already surpassed the 2008 Cyber Monday peak of 6,713,653 global visitors per minute. At 3:00 p.m. ET, the Akamai Index registered a peak of more than 7.9 million global visitors per minute to retail sites included in the Akamai Index. Visitors per minute originating from North America sustained levels of approximately 4.3 million for most of Cyber Monday afternoon until approximately 8:00 p.m. ET, when site visits increased further. By 9:30 p.m. ET, retail traffic peaked at 5,139,690 visitors per minute from North America.

"Supporting the majority of today's leading global retailers, Akamai was in a unique position to monitor online shopping activity during Cyber Monday," said Pedro Santos, Chief Commerce Strategist at Akamai. "Akamai sees that more and more consumers are doing their shopping online, partly because retailers are continually streamlining the online shopping experience through enticing promotions, free shipping, and investments in optimizing their web sites. We expect to see additional peak online shopping periods over the coming weeks leading up to the last shipping day of the year."

Akamai also observed the following additional traffic statistics for the recent U.S. Thanksgiving holiday period as measured by the Akamai Index:

* Global retail traffic peaked on the U.S. Thanksgiving Day (11/26/09) at 5,732,966 visitors per minute at approximately 2 p.m. ET. On the same day, North America traffic peaked at 4,095,242 visitors per minute at approximately 10 p.m. ET.
* Global retail traffic peaked on Black Friday (11/27/09) at 6,689,646 visitors per minute at roughly noon ET, of which 4,047,713 visitors per minute were coming from North America.
* Global retail traffic peaked on Sunday (11/29/09) at 7,378,446 visitors per minute at 2:30 p.m. ET, while North America retail traffic peaked at 4,647,181 at 9 p.m. ET.

Source: Akamai