Local Directories Help Eniro's Sweden Print Results

The Nordic directory publisher Eniro announces its third-quarter and nine-month 2007 earnings on Thursday, and while the news for print in Norway continues to be bad, print appears to have stabilized in Sweden, the publisher’s largest market. While print is down organically 1 percent through nine months, for the third quarter Swedish print revenues grew 4 percent organically.

The reason was local directories (Din Del), which grew a staggering 23 percent, compared with a 2 percent drop for print Yellow Pages. For some time, local directories have been the print success story in Sweden, as Yellow Pages, which is concentrated in big markets like Stockholm, has suffered.

In Norway, print revenues declined 21 percent for the first nine months, and the publisher expects the damage for the full year to be a 15 percent decline. In Sweden, Eniro forecasts flat print revenues for the year.

The Kelsey Report will provide a detailed write-up of the Eniro earnings in a Client Inquiry Brief to be posted next week.