At 43.1 per cent, the business area Digital made the greatest contribution to total sales. At 657.5 million euros, Domestic Publishing declined slightly compared to the past business year (PY: 668.5 m€)*. Accounting for 30.2 per cent of total sales, the unit remained a very profitable business area in 2011. In the past business year, Hubert Burda Media continued to internationalize its publishing activities further, consequently raising external sales to 384.7 million euros (PY: 331.4 m€)* or 17.7 per cent of total sales. Burda Druck successfully strengthened its position within Europe’s rotogravure printing market, an achievement that was partly due to the acquisition of u.e. sebald druck GmbH in Nuremberg. At 188.9 million euros (PY: 127.5 m€), the business area had a share of 8.7 per cent in Group sales.
In 2011, Hubert Burda Media once again stepped up the expansion of their business units by investing a total of 172 million euros (PY: 222 m€). As per the end of 2011, the group employed a workforce of 8,248 people (PY: 7,637). Over 50 per cent of all employees as well as about one in three skilled professionals and executives at Hubert Burda Media are female.
The dynamic upward development of group sales of Hubert Burda Media continued in the business year 2011. Posting a surge in consolidated external sales of 26.5 per cent to 2,175.8 million euros (PY: 1,720.6 m€), the company managed to achieve a new all-time high in total sales. CEO Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen: “This is a very satisfying result, in particular given that the media industry as a whole is rather stagnating. In the years to come, we are aiming to achieve double-digit growth rates.” Group net profit also developed very positively. Kallen: “We expect profit to continue to grow more strongly than consolidated external sales.”