Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Agora is going to fight with rivals who want to take away the market from its daily “Gazeta Wyborcza”. The results of the media group may fall.
New projects of dailies are a threat to “Gazeta Wyborcza” , the major project among Agora's activities.
“We face hard battle, mostly in the segment of traditional dailies”, Wanda Rapaczynska, Agora CEO said.
The most difficult rival of “GW” will probably be Axel Springer, which ends works to implement a new daily. Michal Solowow businessman is also planning to launch a daily. “Rzeczpospolita” daily is going to reduce the size, which may also threaten “GW” position.
“Axel is a difficult enemy. The company has big funds and after it failed to merge in Germany, it focuses on the expansion in Central and Eastern Europe. We are determined, however, to keep “GW” rank as the biggest daily in the country. We will defend the project with all market methods. If we have signals competition is cheating, we will take court measures”, Wanda Rapaczynska assured.
Agora said it would increase the funds spent on promotion. Last year they amounted to PLN 158m (EUR 41.9m Marczak, DI BRE Bank analyst, estimates it may be PLN 30-40m more.
“This is going to be a very hard year. Expenditures may substantially lower income”, Michal Marczak said.
GW has recently halved the price to PLN 1 if the paper is ordered in subscription. Its recent project, “Nowy Dzien” daily is not doing as well as planned. Agora reiterated the forecasts of break even in 2008 and sales of 250,000 issues but it is disappointed with present results. Since being launched in November 2005, “Nowy Dzien” was sold in 190,000 issues and its operating loss amounted to PLN 27.3m.
In the fourth quarter, Agora’s net income fell to PLN 8.6m from PLN 38m a year earlier. Sales rose by 20 percent to PLN 329. In 2005, Agora had PLN 127m of net income against PLN 67m a year earlier. Sales amounted to PLN 1.2 billion, or 20 percent more than in 2004.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.265)