Catcha Media sees a big catch in online advertising

Bilqis Bahari
New Straits Times
07-11-2011
Catcha Media sees a big catch in online advertising
Byline: Bilqis Bahari
Edition: Main/Lifestyle
Section: Business Times
Type: Company

KUALA LUMPUR: Catcha Media Bhd, one of the country's largest new media companies, is planning to launch websites for all its magazines as part of its plan to grow online advertising business.

Group chief executive officer Patrick Grove told Business Times that currently, there are four magazines that have their own websites namely Juice, Home-Pride, Mint and Clive.
"Juice just launched its own website. Stuff and Prestige magazine will be launching its websites this year. So when we launch these websites, they will get integrated into the MSN platform," he said.

The company operates all of Microsoft's online properties in Malaysia, including the MSN portal, and has exclusive sales rights for leading Malaysian website Lowyat.net. It also publishes 14 magazines such as Clive, HomePride, Juice, Mint, Stuff and Prestige, among others.

Currently, Catcha Media has about 410 brands that advertise with the company every month, of which 60 are online and 350 in magazines.

Grove said the company is encouraging its clients to advertise online by educating them about the Internet and Internet advertising.

"Every month we're working with new clients and try to do something on the Internet ... We still have a lot more clients to go through to upsell them to advertise online," he added.

According to Frost & Sullivan, online advertising expenditure in Malaysia is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 56.63 per cent per year for the next five years.

The Internet environment in Malaysia is expected to reach its peak now that Malaysia has high speed broadband like Unifi, P1 and YES.

"When Internet grows, more people will advertise online ... Internet is faster, cheaper and more measurable," said Grove.

Catcha Media is also in talks to partner another Internet company in a year's time.

"I would say within the next 12 months we definitely will be partnering another big American company. I don't know which one yet. It's either Google, Yahoo, Ebay or Skype," Grove added.

The company plans to enter the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) market by expanding its business in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines in the next two years.

The company which operates online media and magazine publishing business is en route for a listing on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia on July 22.

It expects to generate about RM55 million in revenue this year.

For its financial year ended December 31 2010, the company recorded RM35.42 million in revenue, while revenue for the first half of this year was RM20.09 million.

(Copyright 2011)