More stakeholders reached digitally than with printed reports, according to nexxar
Nexxar, an Austrian agency focusing on digital corporate reporting, says online annual reports reach far more stakeholders than printed versions, in a study of report usage.
The average company’s online annual report, the research reveals, attracts more than 35,000 visits within the first year after publication. On average, each report generates 165,938 individual page views and each user visits 4.4 pages of the report.
More than two out of three page views are of the management report (37 percent) and the consolidated financial statements and notes (30 percent), a clear vote for the statutory aspect of the annual report. Information about the company and the share price (19.4 percent) and corporate governance (7.3 percent) are significantly less viewed.
‘Some of the bigger companies in the FT Europe 500 count more than 100,000 visits and more than 400,000 page views [for their online annuals],’ says Thomas Rosenmayr, managing director at nexxar. ‘Compared with their respective print runs, [we believe] online reports reach far more stakeholders.’
Nine percent of all users use the search function to find specific content within the online annual report, and every 10th user already accesses the report via a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet.
‘The main lesson to learn is that IROs should check user stats rather than listen to their print agencies,’ says Rosenmayr.
The research covers company reports from Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria and the UK. The smallest company in the sample has less than 5,000 employees, the largest more than 500,000. Ten companies in the sample are from the top 100 of the FT Europe 500.
