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Earnings surge at outdoor ad firm

Focus Media Holding, an outdoor electronic advertising firm, said its first-quarter net profit jumped 257 per cent as advertisers spent more to promote their products.

Net income for the quarter to March was US$9.43 million, compared with US$2.64 million in the same period last year.

Revenue surged to US$33.13 million from US$9.57 million.

The Nasdaq-listed company expects profit to double in this quarter from the first to between US$18 million and US$19 million, helped by the acquisition of Target Media. Revenue is expected to reach US$48 million to US$50 million.

'With the completion of acquisitions of Target Media and Dotad [Media Holdings] ... [we] expect to record strong growth in all of our media platforms,' chief executive Jason Jiang said.

Focus Media is benefiting from China's fast economic growth and private consumption, which prompt companies to spend more on advertisements.

The mainland's advertising spending rose 25 per cent to 82.6 billion yuan in the first three months of this year, according to media research company Nielsen Media Research.

Focus Media, which delivers commercials on television panels installed in lift lobbies, said first-quarter advertising revenue rose 127 per cent over the same period last year to US$21.5 million.

The company added 58 per cent more flat panel televisions in the first quarter from the previous one, bringing the total to 71,230 units.

It sold 3,904 units of 30-second time slots in the quarter, down from 4,648 units in the previous quarter, mainly because of the Lunar New Year holiday.

Average advertising revenue for each 30-second time slot in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai was up 11.4 per cent at US$11,706 on a quarterly basis.

The occupancy rate of the displays in first-tier cities rose to 76.5 per cent in the quarter from 63.5 per cent a year earlier, while those in second-tier cities climbed to 31.1 per cent from 25.3 per cent.

Focus Media said it would boost revenue from mobile-phone advertising after it completed the acquisition of Dotad in March. Dotad runs an advertisement delivery platform for mobile-telephone carriers including China Mobile and China Unicom.

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