Directories business Sensis has suffered yet another revenue drop, declining by 6.4% to $1.79bn.
The company said that earnings before tax fell by 9.3% to $994m in its full year results announcement.
“Contributing to the decline in the performance was the impact of the floods throughout the east coast of Australia and the investment associated with the deployment of the new strategy,” the company said.
Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst launched a new digital strategy in March aiming to secure long-term profitable growth through a range of new mobile sites and applications, bundled offerings and digital partnerships with Google, Bing and Yahoo.
The central plank in this latest drop has been the drop of Yellow Pages revenue by 11.4%, which flowed on from the 15.8% decline in print directories that was partially offset by a 6.3% growth in digital.
“The decline in Yellow pages print revenue has arisen from higher calculations as customers migrate their advertising to online solutions and declining yields,” the company said.
In the second half digital revenue grew 12.8% year on year.
Telstra, which owns half of Sensis, posted a strong yearly result which saw it expect to return to earnings growth this financial year after it invested heavily in the mobile space last half.
Miro Sandev – 11 August 2011
bandt.com.au/news/sensis-revenue-drops-again
WHILE the newly-formatted White Pages directory has drawn the ire of some users, Sensis, the company that publishes it, has stood by the new design.
Numerous Courier-Mail readers wrote letters to the editor today expressing slamming the smaller font-size, which is now too difficult to read for some.
Breakfast radio has also been flooded with callers upset by their new directories’ down-size.
But Sensis senior product manager Bri Williams said the books were changed as a reflection of the needs of Australians, who were finding the older editions too heavy to use.
“For most of our markets, the book size is the biggest inhibitor to people being able to use them,” she said.
“We really thought it was time to resolve that and we know the compact size is what our readers want.”
The new design is 85 per cent of the size of the old edition.
Ms Williams declined to comment on the cost of production or whether Sensis had made any financial savings from re-sizing the book.
She said the Brisbane market had reacted differently to the Sydney market, where barely any concerns had been registered.
She also said the fact that people had reacted at all to the new format showed they cared deeply about the White Pages.
“”It’s one of those products that people often take for granted,” she said.
“We do find that when we make a change to the book, sections of the market can start to become very engaged in it.”
The directory advertises free magnifying glasses which can be ordered if the print is too small to read.
The instructions for ordering the glasses are located in the front of the book, but if the print is too small, try calling 1800 625 944 to place your order.
news update…..Sensis has responded to declining revenues and usage in white and yellow pages …….corporate spokesperson A Nonomous says that in the interests of making the book lighter and easier to pick up, all display ads will be dropped from the advertising format. Immediately upon the release of this amazing strategy A Nonomous was promoted to head of online strategy.
A Nonomous in their press conference did not stop there. He/She also came up with another epiphany.
If it works to decrease display ads to make books lighter, lets also cut ads, so no one can complain, that way we can decrease customer complaints and cut out the customer service division, thus saving further revenue in head count.
The press was transfixed in the obvious genius of this Sensis management.
Wait… there’s more they said.
In order to cut costs more and increase sales, they sacked all face to face staff, and introduced an inbound ordering system that was user prompted.
Press 1 from more ads
Press 2 for bigger ads
Press 3 to cancel
Press 3 and response is
Press 1 to explain why
Press 2 to continue with why
Press 3 to continue further with why
Press 4 with It does not work anymore stop making me say this
Once 4 is pressed
The res ponder is asked with
Press 1 Tell us why as in the interests of customer service we value your feedback
Press 2, We value your feedback, tell us why to improve our customer service
Press 3 Customer Service and Valued Feedback is important….tell us why
Any answer is responded with
Thank you for your valued contribution and feedback
Press 1 to leave this service
Press 2 to return to main menu
Press 1 and get “welcome to our main menu, your values feedback is required to leave this automated response…..
Press 1 for more ads
Press 2 to for bigger ads
Press 3 to cancel
Press 0 to talk to your representative
0 is the number of people who care
copy ad paste in to url and enjoy!
Oh Yeah!
Hers a new product with no reps required and does the same to customers!
Good to see them diversifying into markets they know nothing about like optical. It couldn’t be more stuffed than the current business…that’s ok were a big company we can drop money on print (quoted by a senior manager who didn’t know someone was behind them) what was it about loose lips. Dahoy
LOL! Hilarious!
This is Spin City on steroids……btw no comments have been posted in weeks….has the sensis nazi brigade taken over?