First quarter 2011
CEO Johan Lindgren comments on the interim report January - March 2011.
“Our plan for turning around the revenue development proceeds according to schedule. Revenues for the first quarter were down 13 percent organically due to weak demand for printed directories, and weak order intake last year. The revenue development is an improvement from the previous reporting period. Our goal to turn around the negative revenue development by increasing the attractiveness of our core services, implementing a broader offer and improving sales efficiency, while having a more efficient cost structure, remains. There is however a significant time lag from sales contact to revenue recognition, which implies that of the revenues for 2011 around 40 percent were sold during the preceding year.
A number of activities have been initiated to increase sales efficiency. At the same time, the number of employees is aligned to the size of the operations, and the pace of activities within product development has been reduced to a sustainable level. We have an attractive product portfolio and there is positive sentiment in the sales force. Mobile services is presently our individually most successful offering in Sweden and Norway, showing a strong growth of order intake, however from low levels.
We are continuously improving our online offering. New versions of eniro.se and gulesider.no with product search started to be sold in the first quarter 2011 and in the second quarter this functionality will be launched also in Denmark. We have also a new sponsored link platform, Scandinavia Ad Network, and are starting to promote the new business-to-business service Proff in all of Scandinavia.
Based on our order intake to date, our outlook remains firm. For 2011, a single-digit organic revenue decline is expected. We estimate a sequential improvement quarter by quarter with an exception of the fourth quarter, which has more scheduled print publications. A turn around to organic revenue growth is expected in 2012. Total cost reductions are expected to be SEK 200 M in 2011. In 2012, the cost base is estimated to be reduced by an additional SEK 200 M.”
Johan Lindgren
President and CEO
Last updated:2011-05-06