Autobytel's Spanish Automotive Portal Gives Latino Online Car Buyers Tools, Content and Online Car-Buying 'En Espanol'

Autobytel 'En Espanol' to Help Information Hungry Hispanic Car Buyers Shop for New and Used Vehicles Online

IRVINE, Calif., July 20 -- Autobytel Inc. , the Internet's largest new vehicle research and buying service, today announced the launch of its new Spanish-language automotive portal, Autobytel 'En Espanol.' The portal offers users upgraded research tools, content and, most significantly, a Purchase Request engine in Spanish for both new and used vehicles. Autobytel, an early pioneer in providing Spanish-language automotive content for the under-served and rapidly adopting Hispanic online car-shopping segment, designed Autobytel 'En Espanol' to empower these car-buyers with the same convenient research and buying processes and cost-savings that hundreds of millions of English speaking car buyers have enjoyed since 1995 on Autobytel's car buying web sites.

Featured on Autobytel sites Autobytel.com, Autoweb.com, CarSmart.com, and AutoSite.com, Autobytel, 'En Espanol' lets shoppers research in-depth vehicle pricing and specifications information, compare data across brands, tap into expert reviews, safety content, car buying tips and articles, and submit a request to receive a no-haggle price quote on a new or used vehicle from a local dealer -- all in Spanish. The dynamic Spanish-language vehicle search, configuration, cross-comparison and viewing tools that anchor the site were developed by Autobytel's vehicle data and content division, AIC, which is also responsible for developing Spanish-language tools utilized by major manufacturers, including Ford, Honda and Subaru.

"It's amazing that only 3% of web content is in Spanish, despite the fact that nearly half of all Hispanic Internet users prefer sites that are either Spanish or bilingual," said Autobytel Inc. Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Donchak. "We are proud to have taken the lead in helping the automotive industry reach out to the online Hispanic segment."

According to Donchak, only a small fraction of automotive websites feature any Spanish-language content and none have the reach or capabilities of Autobytel 'En Espanol': "Our new 'En Espanol' site represents a quantum leap beyond the static, one-dimensional automotive information resources that are currently available to Spanish speaking web shoppers."

Autobytel's focus on Spanish-language initiatives has proven effective. Autobytel sites attracted an industry-leading average of more than 750,000 Hispanic shoppers each month in 2003, approximately 1 in 5 of all Hispanic automotive web site visitors. But it isn't just the allure of Spanish content that's drawing Hispanic car buyers to Autobytel -- it's also a simpler, less stressful, and more cost-effective buying process. A study conducted by Yale University and U.C. Berkeley found that Autobytel.com can save shoppers as much as $450 per purchase, but those savings can rise to as high as $650 per purchase for Hispanic and other minority buyers.

Autobytel's Hispanic marketing initiatives stem from a 2001 company-commissioned survey measuring U.S. Hispanics' automotive website usage. More than 70% of the Hispanic Internet users polled for the study indicated that they planned to use the web during the car purchasing process, while a full 84% said they would be more likely to do their automotive shopping and research online if they could do so in Spanish. Within a year of completing the survey, Autobytel launched the original 'En Espanol' site, a proving ground for cutting-edge content and research tools that currently power Spanish-language automaker sites and major web portals.

U.S. Hispanic Car Market Approaches $40 Billion

With an annual purchasing power approaching $600 billion, U.S. Hispanics are expected to spend $40 billion on cars and parts by 2010 and represent 20% of the total used car market. They are exceptionally active and savvy automotive Internet users. According to the 2004 AOL/RoperASW U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy, online Hispanic households that purchased a new car in the past three years were four times more likely to buy a new car via the Internet than the general online population. This group was also much more likely to locate a dealer online, with 45% of all Hispanic car-buying households sourcing their dealer on the Internet vs. only 25% of non-Hispanic buyers.

"Given that 49% of offline Hispanic consumers cite the lack of Spanish content as their reason for not using the Internet, we believe that we are opening up a door to bring many more Latinos online to research and buy vehicles," concluded Donchak.

About Autobytel

Autobytel Inc. , a leading Internet automotive marketing services company, helps retailers sell cars and manufacturers build brands through marketing, advertising, data and CRM (customer relationship management) products and programs. The Company owns and operates the automotive websites Autobytel.com, Autoweb.com, Carsmart.com, Car.com and AutoSite.com, as well as AIC (Automotive Information Center), a trusted industry source of automotive marketing data and technology for over 20 years. Autobytel is also a leader in dealership lead management and CRM solutions and owns and operates AVV, Inc., a top provider of dealership CRM and sales management products, and Retention Performance Marketing, Inc., (RPM(R)), which powers dealerships with cutting-edge customer loyalty and retention marketing programs. As the Internet's largest new car buying service, Autobytel generates over a billion dollars a month in car sales for dealers through its services and was the most visited new car buying and research destination in 2003, reaching millions of car shoppers as they made their vehicle buying decisions. Autobytel's car-selling sites and lead management products are used by more of the nation's top-100 e-dealers than any other program.