dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
Despite coronavirus crisis: dpa slightly increases revenue and profit
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Hamburg (ots)
Germany's largest news agency, the German Press Agency (dpa), has successfully completed the 2020 financial year. In a difficult market environment due to the coronavirus pandemic, the core company, Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, succeeded in increasing revenue to 93.9 million euros (2019: 93.0 million). Its profit amounted to 1.6 million euros (2019: 1.3 million). The dpa group with its subsidiaries and holdings has also shown positive growth for 2020, with group revenue increasing to 143.9 million euros (2019: 142.5 million). These figures were announced by dpa today at its 72nd shareholders' meeting in Hamburg.
"It makes me proud that together with our employees we managed to keep dpa in safe waters during the coronavirus crisis," says dpa's CEO Peter Kropsch. "The months of the pandemic were marked by a spirit of cooperation. Particularly with regard to our shareholders and customers. This underscores the great importance of the dpa joint venture in times of crisis," Peter Kropsch continues.
The agency's strategic activities focused on the expansion of the dpa marketplace and the increasing use of the dpa ID. The agency and its customers have constantly moved closer together during this process. As part of its marketplace strategy, dpa is investing intensively in the areas of networking, cooperation, and data intelligence as the key drivers of the digital transformation. Already, around 17,000 media professionals and communications experts use the overarching dpa ID to work with the agency's services and its partner companies.
In the past fiscal year, dpa succeeded in reflecting the media shift in its new, contemporary pricing model and in establishing a successful billing model for digital reach. The customer base using this model is growing continuously. In this way the agency is adapting to the ongoing transformation on the part of its customers, whose digital revenues are taking up an ever larger share of the overall business.
"During the months of the pandemic, dpa fulfilled its core mission at all times: reliably supplying the media with independent and verified news," says Editor-in-Chief Sven Gösmann. "We also launched innovation projects. These include our new podcast offerings for Spotify and OMS as well as the dpa-Audio Hub, our new audio archive for customers. And with the integration of TeleNewsNetwork as dpa's video unit, we have completed our offering with TV-enabled moving images," Sven Gösmann continues.
The agency is focusing considerable attention on the development of its new multimedia and modular production platform Rubix. With its help, new products can be produced, networked, and connected to other systems. Rubix, the prototype of which is to be launched in the autumn, will enable collaboration among dpa journalists and ensure data-informed work as well as the faster delivery of products.
The German Press Agency feels called upon to make a strong contribution to curbing misinformation, as part of its responsibility to society as a whole. Therefore, the agency has expanded its fact-checking and verification teams. Fact checks are now produced in six European countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg). In addition, the agency passes on its expertise to journalists from numerous media companies as part of the "Faktencheck 21" project and has set up its own training database, "dpa factify".
The subsidiaries and affiliates again made a significant contribution to the success of the dpa group. For example, news aktuell GmbH, with its services for PR and communications, was able to noticeably increase its revenue even during the coronavirus pandemic. The digital subsidiary dpa-infocom GmbH also continued with its positive growth and again contributed a higher revenue to the overall success of the group. The images subsidiary dpa Picture-Alliance GmbH also closed the year on a stable note, and can look back on a good financial year overall despite coronavirus-related revenue shortfalls due to the cancellation of major sporting and cultural events.
The 2020 annual report is entitled "Transformation. dpa is changing". The report focuses on the enormous pressure to change that the pandemic has exerted on the employees of Germany's largest news agency. However, the change process of the past few months can also be seen as an opportunity to give free rein to fresh thoughts and plans. For example, in innovations, workflows, and customer dialog.
About dpa:
The German Press Agency (dpa) was founded in 1949 and is one of the world's leading independent news agencies. dpa supplies media outlets, businesses and other organizations with editorial content, including text, photos, videos, graphics, audio and other formats. As an international agency, dpa reports in seven languages. The company has around 1,000 journalists in 150 locations in Germany and abroad. Its shareholders are 174 German media companies. Staff work according to the principles outlined in the dpa statute: independently from ideologies, businesses and governments. The central editing desk, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Sven Gösmann, is located in Berlin. The management team, headed by President & CEO Peter Kropsch, is based in Hamburg. The Chairman of the Board is David Brandstätter (Main-Post GmbH, Würzburg).
Internet: www.dpa.com (German, English, Spanish, Arabic)
Social media: www.dpa.com/de/social-media
Pressekontakt:
German Press Agency dpa
Jens Petersen
Head of Corporate Communications
phone: +49 40 4113 32843
pressestelle@dpa.com
Original-Content von: dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, übermittelt durch news aktuell