Fewer dotcoms going to the wall
The rate of internet company closures appears to be slowing down, according to new figures from merger and consulting firm Webmergers.com.
The company, which tracks the count each month on its website, reported just 54 internet companies shut down in the first quarter of 2002 compared with a total of 164 companies a year ago.
There were 17 casualties in March, down slightly from 18 in February and 19 in January. March showed the lowest rate of failures since August 2000 when ten internet companies failed.
Tim Miller, president of Webmergers, said that, although the worst appears to be over, ‘the tail appears to be pretty long, given that there are a number of holdouts’.
He explained that the March numbers are in line with the company’s predictions that the shutdown rate will level out for much of 2002 before declining further.