1. Increased market share
As in the first quarter, the group continued to develop while reconciling strong organic growth (60% in the first quarter, 57% in the second) and the search for external growth. This can be explained by the natural growth of the Internet advertising market and e-commerce, but also by significant gains in terms of market shares.
The advertising pole is continuing its strong growth, which accelerated in the second quarter. In France, the Hi-Media Network advertising network has made it possible to target 67% of web surfers, i.e. 14.3 million people (source: Nielsen Net Ratings, June 2006). In the second quarter, it grew by a record number of 41 new sites, including 6 within Hi Media Women, that targets 1.6 million women over the age of 25 and which is positioned amongst the leading commercial offers for this audience. The affiliation offer, for its part, has attracted more than 110 sites per month to the Comclick network, for which a new platform version was launched in the spring.
With a constant perimeter, the advertising pole grew by 49% in the second quarter, i.e. 9 points better than in the first three months of the year. Overall, this pole experienced growth of 65% in the first half of the year and it represents 45% of the group's consolidated activity.
The direct marketing pole is continuing its strong expansion with a progression of 55% with a constant perimeter, after a leap of 138% in the first quarter. These performances confirm the success of the repositioning initiated in 2005. Hi Media Direct has also extended its offer by integrating the products of Publicityweb (company specialising in search marketing, acquired in October 2005).
The overall direct marketing activities progressed by 138% over the half-year and now represent 7.7% of the group's consolidated sales figure.
The micro-payment pole continued to post excellent performances, with a constant perimeter improvement of 174% in the second quarter, while continuing the integration of the activities of Allopass and the development of this platform in Spain and Italy. Allopass is now used by more than 140,000 web masters in France and internationally, and it attracts 400 new ones each month.
Overall, micro-payments accounted for 47% of the group's consolidated sales figure in the first half-year.
2. Increased strength of the publishing activities
The second quarter was also marked by the finalizing of the acquisition of Odyssée Interactive. Its site, Jeuxvideo.com, now joins the actustar.com sites and those of its blog platform blogorama.fr within the Hi Media Publishing pole. This pole now attracts more than 2.5 million individual visitors each month (source Nielsen Net Ratings, June 2006) and it is positioned as the French-language leader in video games.
With the ambition of becoming a major actor in the field of blogs in Europe and, more generally, a leader in community and participatory content, Blogorama.fr has distinguished itself from amongst its competitors by launching new video functionalities. The platform was simultaneously extended into Belgium and Sweden, and the desire is there to do the same thing in Germany by the end of the year.
Actustar.com is preparing a new version of its site, which will be ready in the summer. The acquisition of a more modestly sized site is also planned in order to strengthen Actustar and create an offer dedicated to the women's audience. As such, Hi Media Publishing is aiming to target the women's audience as broadly as possible, through its different thematic sites.
With a strong team of more than 35 people (including 27 for Odyssée Interactive), Hi-Media publishing is also preparing to launch other thematic sites in the leisure domain.
In pro forma data, the sales figure of the Hi-Media Publishing pole represented 5.3% of the consolidated sales figure for the first half-year.
3. New priority of international development
After the acquisitions of Numériland, Eurovox/Allopass, Actustar and Jeuxvideo.com, Hi Media has strongly concentrated its activity on the French market, where the group is experiencing its strongest growth rate.
However, the group has also posted very good performances in Germany (+34%), Portugal (+74%), Belgium (+70%) and Brazil, through its interest in Hi Midia Brasil. Commercial activities also began in China at the end of the second quarter. The performances have been more limited in Sweden (+8.1%), where Hi-Media does not enjoy the same leadership position that it does in other countries.
In order to improve its growth potential abroad, and thus to attain growth levels comparable with those seen in France, Hi Media has begun to devote increased means to its international development:
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on the one hand, by accelerating the recruiting of larger teams in order to further the development, throughout continental Europe, of all of its ranges of products and services, thus resulting in strong commercial synergies;
This offensive strategy will result in additional investments during the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years. To manage this development as well as possible, Hi-Media has assigned a second executive vice president, dedicated to acquisitions and their integration.
David Bernard, member of the Board of Directors and former Finance Director then Executive Vice President of Hi Media from 2000 to 2003, will be returning to the current management team as of September. This team will henceforth consist of Cyril Zimmermann (CEO), Erik Marie Bion and David Bernard (EVP), and the directors of activity poles: Marianne Bellamy (direct marketing), Olivier Gonzalez (advertising), Eric Giordano (micro-payments), Sébastien Pissavy and Yannick Touchard (Publishing) as well as Dominique Bezier (DAF) and Franck Mechineau (Technical Director).
