Lithuanian advertising business suffered less than Estonian or Latvian
AgeCom has companies in different countries and different industry sectors. Read small interview with Andris Blaka, Shereholder of AgeCom
How has Covid-19 influenced your business?
The beginning of the year was great - we had +10% growth in 2019 compared to the previous year and we were planning to grow again in 2020. But then the Covid happened and ..... Estonian business suffered the most, approximately minus 30% compared to the last year. Lithuania was the least influenced, Latvia was in between.
Lithuania did relatively well because the Lithuanians are the traders by nature and they still have locally owned businesses. They did not sell all their companies like Estonians and Latvians did. Locally owned businesses support the advertising industry the most. Global companies have some strange rules, like "cut all advertising globally" for 3 months or "absolutely no travel". They do not care that Baltic countries have almost no virus any more and we are back to normal again.
Some segments suffered more than others. For example, event and promo agencies had amost no business for several months, but our digital agencies were very busy. Everything that is "E"- related, is on the rise. The whole society has fast forwarded to e-lifestyle. In general, media agencies suffered more than the creative agencies, because some global clients stopped their media spending.
We had to fire some people, but not massively. In the beginning of the year we were planning to hire, but stopped that because of Covid. Now we are planning to hire again, and there are some good people available in the job market because some agencies had to fire lots of people. Before Covid it was very hard to hire.
Where do see the growth (as a holding company)?
We are taking new business pitches very seriously. Just recently we won AboutYou account on Baltic level, it was very serious and competitive pitch. We had to go to Germany to present our proposal. I think that' s very good news that new and strong players, such as AboutYou are entering our market.
Few other importnat pitches are going on, but its too soon to tell more.
Currently, AgeCom is not planning to enter any new markets. But we are open to invest in interesting new companies, we see ourselves as a startup angel investor.
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