Société Éditrice du Monde (SEM) and the Lagardère group have reached an agreement enabling SEM to increase its stake in Le Monde Interactif (MIA) to 100%

In the next few days, the works councils of SEM and MIA will be consulted about this transaction, which could take place before the end of 2011.

Louis Dreyfus, Chief Executive Officer of SEM, commented that “since it acquired its stake in MIA, the Lagardère group has fulfilled its role as a shareholder, effectively supporting the development strategy for the Monde.fr website and providing all resources that MIA might require.” On behalf of the Le Monde group, Mr Dreyfus thanked the Lagardère group for its active and important contribution.

In October 2011, Lemonde.fr attracted 6.2 million unique visitors (source: Nielsen Net Ratings) and 61 million hits, an increase of 21% (source: OJD).
In addition to this audience, mobile applications drew 12.7 million hits from iPhone users, 2.6 million from Android users and 1 million from BlackBerry users, making a total of 16.3 million mobile hits. The free iPad application attracted more than 2 million hits for the first time in October.