The top Czech website is doing well. In 2018, it increased its year-on-year revenues by 8.8 % to 4.48 billion CZK and recorded an EBIT of 1.6 billion CZK. The biggest contributor to revenue growth was income from the Sklik content network.
“Seznam.cz has had an exceptionally successful year. During it, we focused on massive investments in both advertising and technology platforms for third-party content distribution. Even so, we managed to maintain profitability at around 36 %, and we are very satisfied with that,” said Pavel Zima, co-CEO of Seznam.cz, and added that a company based purely on domestic capital, which pays tax on its income exclusively in the Czech Republic and with minimal ties to public budgets and subsidy programmes, is able to successfully compete with global digital giants.
In advertising systems, the company implemented more than twenty projects in 2018, helping it to achieve a 25% year-on-year increase in profit on the Sklik content network, and as much as 45 % in RTB. Revenues from third-party content advertising on the homepage showed a year-on-year increase of tens of percent. Compared to 2017, Seznam.cz also grew in the mobile advertising segment, mainly thanks to new premium square formats. According to Zima, the trends set in advertising in 2018 will continue this year as well – programmatic sales will continue to increase, and native advertising will be shown to be on the rise.
In 2018, Seznam.cz launched its own nationwide terrestrial television station and entered the radio market by purchasing the Expres FM and Classic Praha radio stations. “This year, we will continue to develop products with high added value for Czech users and local advertisers, with a strong emphasis on the homepage, Search, E-mail and Maps. We will continue to develop content partnerships, as well as continue to produce and further develop our own, high-quality, independent content,” says Zima of plans for the coming months.