TALLINN - The media conglomerate Ekspress Group announced that last year's revenues soared 24 percent to 1.1 billion kroons (70.5 million euros) buoyed by a strong performance of its flagship new portal Delfi.
Revenue for Delfi throughout the Baltics soared 46 percent to 130 million kroons, the company announced. Sales in the final quarter alone totaled 51.7 million kroons as Internet advertising has skyrocketed.
"Of the entire profit of Delfi, Latvia's Delfi contributes 40 percent, whereas the Lithuanian Delfi has big growth potential," Hans H. Luik, the Ekspress Group's majority owner, told reporters Feb. 27.
Delfi features news and information Web portals in all three Baltic languages plus a Russian-language version in each country.
CEO Priit Leito said that the Russian-language portal in Lithuania, which was launched last year, already had 55,000 registered users.
"Originally we planned to reach the 80,000 mark by the end of 2008. That target we have surpassed already," he said. "In March we're going to launch a new Delfi-based project in Lithuania," he added, though he refused to elaborate.
The Ekspress Group purchased Delfi last year for 846 million kroons (54 million euros).
Leito said this year the group would focus on its online advertising opportunities. "According to a recent forecast by Emor TNS, the advertising market should expand by 8-10 percent this year," Leito said. "But in Delfi we're expecting a growth rate of at least 30-40 percent."
As Luik explained, "The overall movement of advertising in the direction of the Internet seems to be a rather unidirectional vector. Our hope is that Internet advertising is more advantageous for companies too, because people focus on it more than on television commercials, for instance."
The group's financials soured in the fourth quarter due to the launch of a subsidiary in Romania and a change in accounting policies related to the recognition of revenue from information services.
Fourth-quarter earnings amounted to 21.5 million kroons, a drop of 38 percent year-on-year. Revenues, however, were up 37 percent to 365.3 million kroons.
Delfi runs a total of eight Internet portals, including one in Ukraine.
The group employed 2,292 as of the end of December.
