Lagardère Active still the leading French media company on iPhone with more than two million application downloads

Buoyed by the success of the 11 iPhone applications introduced over the past 12 months, Lagardère Active has decided to deploy its brands more extensively on the iPhone in 2010.

Its 11 applications have now been downloaded more than two million times, generating nearly 60 million page views in December alone. Each month, over half of all iPhone users in France utilize at least one Lagardère Active application.

Lagardère Active currently offers a combination of free applications (Première , Sports.fr , RFM , Virgin radio , Télé7 , Public , Boursier.com , Doctissimo , Fluctuat ), free applications with some paid content (ELLE Astro) and for-pay applications (ELLE à Table).

These applications focus on supplying practical services that make the most of iPhone functionalities, enabling users to find movie theatres and schedules with iPhone’s GPS application (Première), access sports news (sports.fr) and stock updates (boursier.com) in real time, listen to radio, web radio and podcasts (Virgin Radio and RFM), watch various TV programmes, access Télé7 recommendations and much more.

Several of these applications already dominate their categories: Télé7 and Première are installed on more than 20% of iPhones, while boursier.com is the No. 1 financial/stock application and Public is the top-ranked celebrity news application.

Lagardère Active’s iPhone applications are part of a strategy aimed at deploying the company’s media brands across a range of digital platforms, including mobile telephones, wi-fi TV and portable multimedia players (PMPs).

According to Didier Quillot, chairman of Lagardère Active’s Management Board, “Mobiles are a key element in our digital strategy and, more generally, in the development of our digital-media business model. This highly promising ‘ecosystem’ will boost the strength of Lagardère Active’s brands and their ability to achieve their full potential.”

“Our applications have been downloaded more than two million times onto iPhone users’ home screens,” notes Sales and Marketing director Emmanuel Vacher. “This represents a key asset for our brands in terms of both advertising to this audience and promoting existing and future Lagardère pay services.”