OREANDA-NEWS. March 27, 2012. RBC OJSC (MICEX-RTS: RBCM) hereby announces its unaudited consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2011.

"RBC made a huge step forward in 2011 and laid the groundwork for further dynamic growth. In particular, we significantly improved the quality of media products and strengthened our team, which enabled us to considerably boost ratings and monetization. As a result, RBC's advertising revenue in all three segments1 outpaced the market starting the second quarter, while EBITDA soared more than six times in 2011. The fourth quarter traditionally made the biggest contribution to the EBITDA growth. All in all, RBC demonstrated one of the best results in terms advertising sales in 2011 among Russian media holdings which disclose their financial data," RBC CEO German Kaplun said.

"RBC's key segment, the Internet, showed the highest revenue growth in 2011. The share of the Internet rose from 60% of the company's total revenue to 66%. We anticipate this trend to continue and the share of the Internet in RBC revenue to rise further in 2012. The upgrade of RBC TV, which was carried out last year, made it possible for the channel to substantially ramp up its audience and obtain a record-high rating. The channel's revenue rose 24% in 2011, as compared to 18% growth of the television ad segment. We hope that all changes that occurred at RBC TV in the reporting period will lead to above-market revenue growth in 2012 as well. Printed publications gained 9% in 2011. The main driving forces of RBC's press growth were business titles, which delivered 31% revenue expansion. Advertising revenue from printed publications is expected to grow at least on par with the market in 2012," German Kaplun added.

RBC's revenue in Q4 and FY 2011

Million rubles

Q4 2011

Q4 2010

Change (%)

Internet

1,203

729

65%

Advertising

886

455

95%

Services

317

274

16%

Television

219

201

9%

Printed publications

301

308

-2%

Business publications5

65

129

28%

Salon Press Publishing House

135

179

-24%

Total revenue

1,723

1,238

39%

 

Million rubles

2011

2010

Change (%)

Internet

3,105

2,097

48%

Advertising

2,219

1,330

67%

Services

886

767

16%

Television

606

489

24%

Printed publications

973

893

9%

Business publications5

426

324

31%

Salon Press Publishing House

547

569

-4%

Total revenue

4,684

3,479

35%

Revenue and EBITDA. RBC's total revenue rose 39% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 35% year-on-year to RUB 4,684m in 2011. The increase in revenue is attributable to higher advertising prices and sell-out ratio, which are linked to the expansion of RBC's Internet and TV audience as well as the high ratings of printed publications.

EBITDA reached RUB 524m in 2011, up more than six times from 2010. The fourth quarter traditionally saw the highest increase in EBITDA due to pronounced seasonal fluctuations in RBC's advertising activity.

Internet. Internet revenue rose 65% in the fourth quarter of 2011 and advanced 48% in 2011, reaching RUB 3,105m. The upsurge in revenue was attributable to high advertising sales, which increased as the audience expanded, higher advertising prices, which were raised 18% in February and 15%-25% in September, as well as to increased monetization of core resources. Specifically, advertising revenue of non-business online resources tripled year-on-year in 2011. Web hosting and domain name registration, RBC's key online services, continued to show sustainable growth, although a downturn in revenue generated from the sale of information had an impact on the growth dynamics of the online services sub-segment.

In 2011, RBC's aggregate online audience grew 70% to 88.7m users. The audience of Rbc.ru, the major business portal in Russia, rose 35% year-on-year to 20.2m users as of the end of December 2011. The audience of Qip.ru entertainment portal more than doubled (up 152%), reaching 51.5m users.

During the reporting period, RBC launched over 20 different online services, including QIP Speed Test, a service for measuring mobile Internet speed, and online radio QIP.Radio, and also released over 30 mobile applications. RBC has updated its messaging services QIP, which now fully supports Facebook, Twitter, and VKontakte social networks. In addition, RBC acquired a controlling stake (51%) in online service OGOROD, which combines geolocation and micro-blogging technologies.

In 2011, RBC announced the acquisition of RU-Center, Russia's major domain name registrar. The deal is expected to be closed over the next couple of months. After RU-Center mergers with Hosting Community, which is part of RBC holding, an absolute leader will emerge in both web hosting and domain name registration segments in Russia.

Television. RBC TV's revenue climbed 9% in the fourth quarter and 24% in 2011, reaching RUB 606m. Revenue growth was attributable to higher cost of advertising, up 15% since the beginning of 2011, as well as higher sell-out ratio of RBC TV's broadcasting time, up 19% year-on-year. The moderate revenue growth rate recorded in Q4 was due to the overall environment in the Russian advertising market, as certain advertisers canceled their TV budgets amid macroeconomic uncertainty.

In 2011, RBC carried out a large-scale upgrade program for RBC TV, which included launching a new studio complex, updating the programming grid, as well as strengthening the channel's mobile and online components. In addition, RBC signed an exclusive cooperation agreement with Bloomberg TV, which will provide content on Western financial markets to RBC TV. In November, renowned Russian journalist and TV host Alexander Lyubimov was appointed CEO of RBC TV.

As a result of these transformations, RBC TV reached its biggest rating ever in December 2011 as its monthly audience in Russia stood at 18.2m viewers, up 13% year-on-year.

Printed Publications. Revenue from RBC's printed publications decreased 2% in Q4 and climbed 9% in 2011 to RUB 973m. Throughout 2011, RBC's revenue growth from printed publications was driven mainly by advertising proceeds from RBC's business titles. Specifically, sales of RBC daily surged 1.4-fold. The upturn in advertising revenue was mainly due to the fact that the number of advertising pages increased, as well as to a 10% price hike in advertising prices for RBC daily and RBC magazine in Q4 2010, and in the range from 10% to 16.5% in October 2011. Due to economic instability in Europe, where the key advertisers of Salon Press Publishing House operate, the revenue from interior design magazines slightly decreased in 2011.

Average issue readership (AIR) of RBC daily business newspaper stood at 76,000 people from May to October 2011, which ranks RBC daily as Moscow's second most popular business newspaper. In addition, the newspaper has a broad online audience. Rbcdaily.ru's monthly online audience reached 3.5m people by the end of the year, up 59% year-on-year. The average issue readership of RBC monthly business magazine stood at 1.02m people, which places the title second in the segment. In Moscow, RBC is the most popular business magazine with an average issue readership of 327,900 people.

During the reporting period, RBC continued expanding the online footprint of its business titles. Specifically, a website for RBC magazine was launched at Magazine.rbc.ru, while RBC daily newspaper is now featured in online newspaper kiosk PressDisplay. The newspaper is also included in RBC's mobile application for iOS and Android.

Interior design magazines retained their leading positions in their respective segments in 2011. The AIR of Idei Vashego Doma (Ideas for Your Home), which targets a broad audience, stood at 1.94m people, while the number of readers of Salon-interior, a premium segment magazine, totaled 552,100 people in Russia.