German publisher Axel Springer saw revenue digital income grow to €171.5 million in the first half of the year, thanks mainly to its acquisition of online marketer Zanox and women’s site auFeminin.com earlier this year. That’s up from €44.3 million a year ago, and represents 12.8 percent of all business. The new sites brought a sharp increase in advertising revenue, the group said. Before tax, interest, amortisation and depreciation, digital earnings were up to €6 million from €3.9 million a year ago.

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auFeminin.com made €12.5 million from advertising and other sales but profit dipped from €7.7 million to €5.8 million on planned expenditure; monthly uniques grew 10.2 percent year-on-year to 21.4 million between January and June. Springer has holds 79.7 percent of the publisher, a stake which has been steadily increasing. Between January and June, page impressions at women’s site jolie.com grew 104.9 percent to 13.2 million.

Bild.de page impressions rose 46.4 percent between May and June alone; the newspaper portal claimed a massive 65.8 million visitors in June, after launching metropolitan editions, though only 4.5 million uniques.

But sales at financial news site wallstreet:online were €1.7 million lower than a year ago, at €2.6 million. Fewer readers are using the site in the weak stock market, leading to fewer advertisers, Springer conceded. Overall, Springer revenue rose 11.1 percent year-on-year to €1.34 billion

Release | Financials | Presentation