After dropping for several months, Agora’s “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily copy sales rebounded, rising to 450,100 copies or by 1.1% in March, compared with the same month in the previous year, while total national newspaper circulation declined. Agora’s newspaper did not do better than its main rivals published by Axel Springer Polska, whose “Fakt” tabloid copy sales soared by 15% y/y in March. Other national newspapers reported mixed copy sales results in March with “SuperExpress” tabloid up 4%, and “Rzeczpospolita” broadsheet down by 0.6%. The official statistics do not include ASP’s new daily “Dziennik”, which was launched on April 18th. However, ASP announced that ‘Dziennik” initial copy sales figures for April are encouraging and amounted to over 200,000 copies, versus 150,000 minimal threshold.
Overall, we believe that rebounding “Gazeta” copy sales in March, which grew further to 500,000 copies in April, point to an unshaken market position of Agora. We continue to rate Agora as a Hold, with a fair value estimate of PLN 60 per share.