For the six months ended 31 March, the media company behind official magazines for Sony Playstation, Nintendo and Microsoft Xbox, significantly improved the performance of it US operation while maintaining its EBITA margin in the UK.
Total revenue across its UK and US operations fell 3% and 10% year-on-year respectively, resulting in a 7% drop overall. Both outperformed their individual markets as a whole.
According to figures from ZenithOptimedia, magazines as a sector dropped 26% in the UK (forecast) and 21% in the US (actual) in 2009.
Despite the challenging climate, strong gains made by Future in the second quarter suggest recovery is underway.
"It feels like we've got reasons to be bullish about our position," said Stevie Spring, chief executive of Future.
"And while it may be tempting fate to say that the worst is behind us, not least with so many continuing uncertainties at a macro-economic level, we are now seeing some notable improvements in trading patterns which we're confident will benefit us in the second half."
In the UK, the group achieved a 6% rise in subscription revenue during the period, enough to partially offset a 10% drop at the newsstand. Overall circulation revenue, responsible for 60% of group revenue, fell 4%.
Advertising revenue, which makes-up 29% of group revenue, dropped 13% year on year, pinned back by 23% fall in US trading for the half year.
Future's total US operation suffered an 18% drop in the first half of 2009 resulting in a "root and branch" review of the business led by its US president, John Marcom.
It was said to encompass every product, from cover design to distribution, and pricing to paper.
Among the changes to emerge has been a new contract with distributor Time Warner Retail after newsstand titles were affected by a dispute with independent wholesalers trying to increase prices.
"At the end of 2009, we set out a key priority to return our US business to profit," said Spring. "As a result of all these efforts, we have a more efficent retail structure and we've seen a very encouraging swing from an 18% drop in criculation revenue in H1 2009 to just a 2% decrease in H1 2010, despite 50% fewer specials."
Elsewhere, Future identifies another of its "key strategic priorities" as diversifying its revenue model beyond print, with digital operations now accounting for 25% of total revenues.
By way of example, the chief executive said Future's technology website TechRadar, launched in 2007, is now vying for the top spot in the technology space with CNET, with nearly one million unique users per month and with dwell time double that of CNET.
Spring said: "Significant growth in traffic to our online properties in the last 18 months is being turned into a push for real engagement with our ‘prosumer" audiences online - increasing time spent on site, growing the number of forum users, Facebook and Twitter followers.
"So we're gaining more commercial benefit from these relationships."
Spring noted there were early signs of market improvement for 2010 but admitted to taking a "wait and see" approach to the new Government, and cautioned it was "too early to talk about sustained recovery".
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