Online advertisers soar at Yell

Yell relaunched several directories in the US

UK telephone directory publisher Yell has seen the number of advertisers at its website increase by 41.5% in the nine months to 31 December.

Yell.com advertisers rose to 133,000 in the period while the firm's Yellow Pages directories only saw a slight increase in advertisers to 354,000.

Pre-tax profits were £112.7m ($212.8m), compared with a loss of £91.5m last year, on sales of £897.9m.

Turnover at Yell.com came in at £25.8m in the period.

Yell is also the largest independent phone directory publisher in the US.

Online growth

The rise in profits came despite UK regulatory price caps, which cut the price of listings by an average of 3.4%.

The company's UK turnover was up 4.3%, while in the US turnover increased by 9.5% on the back of the relaunch of several directories.

"We are confident of meeting expectations for the full year, as well as seeing a positive outlook beyond this," said chief executive John Condron.

Yell said it was talking to its legal advisors about the merits of class-action lawsuits in four US states from customers who claim that consumer protection legislation has been violated.