Do image links count?

Just a quick question, as I'm not entirely sure -

I have an affiliate who has generously offered to place an image link (a small banner) to my site on his webpage.

Does this image link count as a backlink?

EDIT: Yes, it's a link.. click it and you end up on my homepage. I'm not one of the idiots who thinks "hotlinking" means linking.

yes it counts

I addition to the two statements above i would like that add that alt tags are also very important.
Normally when we make a image link, it does not carry a anchor keyword.
With alt tags you can substitute the anchor text.

Search engines love alt tags. And images are more likely to rank under there alt tags then under there normal name+extension.

Also a good thing about alt tags is that when a image doesn't load, your alt tag is displayed instead of a loading error icon.

I thought i'd just mention that.