In view of sector concentration and strengthening of the leaders’ advantage, Hi-Media is consolidating its positions:
1. in the advertising space
In France, the figures for the third quarter communicated by TNS Media Intelligence confirm the tendency noted since the start of the year to concentration of advertising budgets on the most significant players. Thus the four leading space-buying agencies represent 39% of on-line advertising excluding sponsored links. Hi-Media, the fourth-ranking player in the first two quarters of 2006, moved up to second place in the third quarter, with a 9.54% market share.
During the year, the agency added 65 sites to its premium offering (net change). Thus the number of single visitors rose by 14%, to more than 15.2 million, a 67% penetration rate (source: Nielsen NetRatings, October 2006).
With a combined audience of 17 million visitors in Germany on such major sites as Myspace.com, Faz.net or Immobilienscout, 4.7 million in Sweden and more than two million in Belgium and in Portugal, the various European entities now have audiences enabling them, in turn, to win significant market shares (sources: Adtech).
The same applies to Brazil and China, where the networks reach, respectively, 23 and 26 million single visitors, generating several billion page impressions per month (source: Dart).
The strengthening of such positions also entails development of the Comclick network (which was among the assets acquired in Numeriland), now operational in Belgium, Portugal and Brazil, while this offer is to be launched in Germany and Sweden before the end of the year.
2. by widening its direct marketing offering
Hi-Media Direct is continuing to develop its business by enlarging its range of services thanks to turnkey recruitment programs, games and competitions, viral marketing, as well as loyalty programs, database enrichment and data-mining services.
In France, such high-value-added offerings already account for more than 10% of the direct marketing activity.
3. in the micro-payment field
This activity recently set a record for the number of daily transactions with a total of more than 80,000. Since July 1, the platform has taken in more than 15,000 new webmaster entries and it now amounts to 152,600 accounts. The installation of cross-selling between that platform and the Comclick network represents a promising start.
This means that the company is confirming its leadership status on the French-speaking market and plans to launch a new site soon, this one intended for surfers using Allopass, and no longer just for webmasters who are customers for its micro-payment solutions.
Internationally, Allopass now offers payment procedures in twenty countries with some new commercial agreements in Eastern Europe and the United States.
4. with some new site launches by the publishing sector:
As planned at the time of its acquisition, Feminup has launched a new version that will bring it a much larger audience, and it targets several hundred thousand single visitors within twelve months.
The blog theme portals now represent 1.2 million single visitors in France, Belgium, Sweden and Brazil (source: Edatis).
In the next few months, Hi-Media is going to continue to strengthen the key positions it has acquired in its various trades and to develop synergies among them.
The company will release annual sales figures on 24 January 2007.
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