Digital subscription results of AS Ekspress Grupp for the fourth quarter of 2023

The total number of digital subscriptions of AS Ekspress Grupp increased by 41% in the Baltic States year-over-year (4^th quarter: 15%) and totalled 207,328 at the end of December.

• The number of digital subscriptions of AS Delfi Meedia that publishes the news portal Delfi, newspapers Eesti Päevaleht, Maaleht, Eesti Ekspress and several popular magazines increased by 20% year-over-year (4^th quarter: 4%) and totalled 102,793.
• The number of digital subscriptions of AS Õhtuleht Kirjastus, 50% of which is owned by Ekspress Grupp, increased by 10% year-over-year (4^th quarter: -2%) and totalled 24,875.
• The number of digital subscriptions of Geenius Meedia OÜ increased by 25% year-over-year (4^th quarter: 8%) and totalled 6,998.
• In Latvia, the number of digital subscriptions of Delfi A/S increased by 87% year-over-year (4^th quarter: 31%) and totalled 26,427.
• In Lithuania, the number of digital subscriptions of Delfi increased by 112% year-over-year (4^th quarter: 39%) and totalled 39,872.
• The Lithuanian media portal Lrytas started selling paid content in the 4^th quarter of 2023 and reached 6,363 digital subscriptions by the end of December.

Comments by the Chairman of the Management Board of Ekspress Grupp, Mari-Liis Rüütsalu:

“Last year as a whole and especially the last quarter were very successful for the media publications of Ekspress Grupp. The total number of subscriptions increased by 41 per cent in the Baltic States in a year and totalled 207,000 at the end of December.

On the Estonian market, the number of digital subscriptions of our largest media company, Delfi Meedia, increased by 20% in a year and exceeded 100,000 subscriber threshold for the first time in December.  Compared to the population of Estonia, Delfi has probably become one of the most successful media companies with a share of digital subscriptions both in Europe and worldwide.

On the Lithuanian and Latvian markets, there was also a certain breakthrough in switching to a digital subscription model, which we have anticipated for a while already. The number of digital subscribers of Delfi in Lithuania more than doubled and totalled almost 40,000 subscriptions by the end of the year. The number of subscriptions of Delfi in Latvia increased by 87 per cent and totalled more than 26,000. The newest Lithuanian media company of Ekspress Grupp, Lrytas, switched to the digital subscription model in the last quarter and had already more than 6,000 subscriptions by the end of the year. These figures demonstrate that, similarly to Estonia, the readers of other Baltic States are also adopting the digital subscription model of journalism and value domestic, independent content produced in their own language.”

Detailed overview of digital subscriptions

The Group considers only the subscriptions with the value of more than 1 euro per calendar month that are separately invoiced and separately cancellable at any given time as digital subscriptions.

Digital subscription revenue makes up an increasingly larger share of the digital revenue base of Ekspress Grupp. We are moving in the direction of the Group’s long-term goals of increasing the volume of digital subscriptions to 340,000 subscribers in the Baltic countries by the end of 2026. The long-term goals of Ekspress Grupp were established and disclosed at the beginning of 2022.

Argo Rannamets
CFO
AS Ekspress Grupp
Email: argo.rannamets@egrupp.ee

AS Ekspress Grupp is the leading Baltic media group whose key activities include web media content production, and publishing of newspapers, magazines and books. The Group also operates an electronic ticket sales platform and ticket sales offices and offers outdoor screen service in Estonia and Latvia. Ekspress Grupp launched its operations in 1989 and employs almost 1,100 people