Huuto.net to Ilta-Sanomat - Keltainen Pörssi becomes Finland's leading classified ad service
Ilta-Sanomat Oy, part of SanomaWSOY Group, has acquired Huuto.net online auction service from TeliaSonera Finland. Huuto.net will be part of the service offering of classified ad publication Keltainen Pörssi. After the acquisition, Keltainen Pörssi will become Finland's leading online classified service measured by the number of visitors.
Huuto.net is the first and most popular online auction site in Finland with 300,000 unique visitors weekly. Consumer-to-consumer sales through the service amount to some EUR 30 million yearly. At the moment, the site has some 200,000 items on sale. In 2004, the net sales of Huuto.net totalled EUR 130,000.
In the future, both the technical platform and the usability of Huuto.net service will be further developed. - Our goal is to further improve the safety and consumers' trust in web purchases and therefore increase the number of buyers and sellers as well as the value of the auctions. Huuto.net will strengthen Keltainen Pörssi's position as the leading consumer-to-consumer market place, explains Pekka Harju, President of Ilta-Sanomat Oy.
- The deal will also strengthen Sanoma's position as the leading classified service provider both in print and online, continues Mikael Pentikäinen, President of Sanoma Corporation.
Keltainen Pörssi's share of the classified ad paper market is some 75%. Its online service, www.keltainenporssi.fi, has 70,000 items on sales and some 76,000 unique visitors each week.
Ilta-Sanomat Oy is Finland's largest single copy publisher with a market share of some 31%. Its tabloid Ilta-Sanomat has 60.2% share of the tabloid market. Ilta-Sanomat Oy's main products include Ilta-Sanomat, the sports and sport betting weekly IS Veikkaaja, and the classified ad publications Keltainen Pörssi (in Finland) and Kuldne Börs (in Estonia). Classified ad publications amount to some 15% (EUR 15 million) of Ilta-Sanomat Oy's net sales. The fast growing online services represent some 4%.