Print Media Advertising Declines As Online Increases In China For 51job.com

Chinese online recruitment company 51job Inc. announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter of 2010 and for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010.

Total revenues for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2010 were CNY301.7 million, an increase of 33.5% from CNY226.0 million for the same quarter in 2009. Total revenues for 2010 were CNY1,090.0 million, an increase of 33.4% from CNY817.1 million in 2009.

Print advertising revenues for the fourth quarter of 2010 decreased 20.2% to CNY51.5 million compared with CNY64.6 million for the same quarter in 2009. The decline was reportedly primarily due to a reduction in the number of cities where 51job Weekly is published, from 22 cities as of December 31, 2009 to 16 cities as of December 31, 2010.

As a result, the company stated that the estimated number of print advertising pages generated in the fourth quarter of 2010 decreased 36.6% to 1,694 compared with 2,672 pages in the same quarter in 2009. However, although print advertising prices in each city were largely unchanged, overall average revenue per page in the fourth quarter of 2010 increased 25.8% as compared to the same quarter of the prior year due to an increase in page volume contribution from higher priced cities.

Online recruitment services revenues for the fourth quarter of 2010 were CNY156.0 million, representing a 60.4% increase from CNY97.3 million for the same quarter of the prior year. The increase was primarily due to a greater number of unique employers using the company’s online recruitment services as well as higher average revenue per unique employer.

Net income for the fourth quarter of 2010 increased 44.3% to CNY66.9 million from CNY46.4 million for the same quarter in 2009.

As of December 31, 2010, 51job had cash and short-term investments totaling CNY1.64 billion compared with CNY1.21 billion at December 31, 2009. Short-term investments consist of certificates of deposit with original maturities from three months to one year.