Auto Trader website gets 29.5% hike in users

LONDON - Auto Trader, one of the Guardian Media Group's highly profitable Trader Media titles, has enjoyed a 29.5% year-on-year increase in the number of its website users.

According to the company, attracted 5.8m unique users in January this year, compared with 4.5m in the same month in 2005.

The growth in online traffic contrasts with the fall in circulation of the magazine version of Auto Trader as readers migrate to the web. Auto Trader's circulation was down 12.7% over six months to 285,501.

Since GMG bought Trader Media in October 2003 for £600m, Auto Trader's print circulation is down 21.9%.

Matt Thompson, marketing director at Trader Media Group, said: "We are seeing huge growth through our digital channels as motorists increasingly use the internet to buy and sell cars, while the Auto Trader magazine continues to be the best-selling motoring product on the newsstand."

Other buying and selling titles have suffered even worse falls. Since the first half of 2003, Trader Media's general Ad Trader is down 30.8% to 157,173 copies, while rival Loot, owned by the Daily Mail & General Trust, is down 38.4% to 153,744.

GMG is currently studying possible asset disposals as a safeguard for the future of its newspaper business and on February 2 appointed Merrill Lynch to advise it.

Trader Media generated £116.6m of GMG's £122.4m operating profit for 2005.

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