Mail Online digital ad revenue growth offsets print decline - but DMG Media revenue still drops by 2%
Mail Online’s digital advertising revenue growth offset the decline in print advertising in the last year, according to the Daily Mail and General Trust’s pre-close trading update – although advertising revenue overall is down by two per cent.
Figures: Digital advertising revenue has grown
Ahead of the completion of its financial year at the end of September, DMG released figures for the 11 months prior to it showing digital advertising revenue growth of £17m, an increase of 49 per cent, to £53m. In contrast, the publisher’s print advertising revenue fell by a smaller margin of £10m, a fall of five per cent, to £172m.
However, for the year to date, digital advertising revenue growth failed to prevent a decline in overall ad revenue, which fell by two per cent. Circulation revenue dropped by five per cent, while overall revenue for DMG Media operations fell by four per cent.
The Group statement said that the figures in DMG’s Media operations were “in line with last year” and said the digital-driven growth in advertising had also offset the decline in print circulation.
“Circulation revenues are down five per cent due to lower sales volumes, although the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday reported increases in market share, reaching 22.2 per cent and 21 per cent respectively in August.”
The statement added that Mail Online recorded 180 million global monthly unique browsers in August, an increase of nearly a third (30 per cent) year on year. The website’s average daily unique browsers sits at 11.4 million, up by more than a quarter (26 per cent) on last year.
Overall Group revenue increased by one per cent in the 11 months to August 2014 according to the statement, and DMG said its Wowcher service had delivered a "particularly strong performance" with revenue growth of 77 per cent and a database of 5.9 million subscribers.