BERLIN, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Axel Springer, one of Germany's largest media companies, announced that it is intending to focus even more strongly on its segments of digital journalism and other digital businesses, said chief executive officer (CEO) Mathias Doepfner at the company's annual shareholders' meeting here Wednesday.
This would also mean that the company's marketing business would "no longer belong to the company" in the medium to long term, Doepfner pointed out.
The annual shareholders' meeting also confirmed a dividend of 2.10 euros per share as proposed by the management and supervisory board at the beginning of March. The company distributed a total of 226.6 million euros (256.0 U.S. dollars) to its shareholders for the 2018 financial year.
Turnover of Axel Springer increased by 4.1 percent to a total of around 3.2 billion euros in the fiscal year 2018, the company had announced back in march. With 70.6 percent, Axel Springer's digital businesses made a major contribution to the company's revenues.
"The company has taken a further step on its way to becoming more and more digital," commented the CEO.
The development in the digital business of Bild and Welt, two of Axel Springer's best-known newspapers in Germany, had also been successful, according to Doepfner. "We are converting more and more subscribers from individual articles".
In 2019, the company is planning to increase its investments especially at Stepstone, a subsidiary that operates a job platform for skilled workers and executives.
In addition, Axel Springer intends to invest in the segments of real estate classified ads, Business Insider, an operator of online news platforms, as well as in technologies that would be needed "for a dynamic and long-term increase in earnings", according to the company.
