IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 28 July
28-07-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Irish online ad market worth EUR100m: report | LG Electronics profit falls 33pc
The Irish Times reports that the online advertising market in Ireland was worth almost EUR100 million last year, 10 percent of the overall advertising spend, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' 'Entertainment and Media Outlook 2010'. The report, commissioned by IAB Ireland, said newspaper advertising was EUR343 million in 2009, TV ads accounted for EUR209 million, while radio represented EUR139 million. Spending on online advertising has overtaken the spend on outdoor, magazine and cinema advertising. Search advertising, especially pay-per-click, accounted for more than 46 percent of the online advertising spend.
The paper also says that Digicel owner Denis O'Brien has been appointed to the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, an international body chaired by his telecoms rival, Carlos Slim. The organisation is jointly run by Unesco and the ITU, the UN agency for ICT; its aim is to promote the economic and social benefits of high-speed, high-capacity broadband and to promote the use of technology, particularly in developing countries.
The Irish Examiner reports on the launch of an online forum aimed at creating good-looking babies. Presented as a solution for parents who worry about having ugly children, the Fertility Forum is "like any charitable work", according to Managing Director Greg Hodge. It's "a noble cause for those going through the difficult experience of failing to conceive," he said, explaining that the site gets no payment for directing donors and recipients to professional clinics. The forum is accessed through the website BeautifulPeople.com. Beautiful members can post if they want to donate their sperm or eggs to an unattractive person or couple who wants a baby.
The Wall Street Journal reports that LG Electronics' second-quarter net profit fell 33 percent from a year earlier as many of its key businesses suffered from a slowdown in European markets. Net profit for the period fell to KRW856.4 billion (USD724.5 million) from KRW1.28 trillion a year earlier, but came in higher than analyst expectations of KRW436 billion. Operating profit slumped 90 percent from a year earlier to KRW126.2 billion, while sales fell 0.7 percent to KRW14.41 trillion. The company said it expects to post "modest" growth in the third quarter on the back of a continuing recovery in the global economy.
The paper also says that Spain's Telefonica has reached a preliminary agreement with Portugal Telecom to purchase its stake in Brazil's Vivo. Telefonica has sweetened its offer for PT's stake in Vivo to EUR7.5 billion, to be paid in several instalments, according to a source. Senior executives at PT and Telefonica reached a preliminary, verbal agreement late on Tuesday, this person said. Trading on PT shares was halted by Portuguese financial supervisors before markets opened on Wednesday.
According to the Financial Times, Yahoo Japan has chosen Google to power its web searches, a snub to Microsoft's Bing. The deal extends Google's dominance of the global search market and cuts off another avenue for Bing to make substantial gains. Last summer, Yahoo signed a ten-year agreement to use Microsoft's Bing search technology elsewhere in the world. The partnership is expected to come into effect this autumn. Microsoft on Tuesday threatened to raise the deal with regulators. "It means there will be no search competition in Japan," the company said.
The paper also says that business software giant SAP has slightly raised its sales outlook for the full year. The group said it expects revenues from software and related services to climb by 6 to 8 percent at constant currencies in the full year, at the upper end of the previously forecast range of 4 to 8 percent. The company added that software and related service revenues would rise by 9 to 11 percent if sales from database firm Sybase, which SAP acquired this year, were taken into account. The guidance was seen as overly cautious by some analysts and it disappointed investors.
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