Simba Information's Yellow Pages Market Forecast 2006 is your guide to the world of Yellow Pages markets in the United States. This invaluable resource provides you with a deep understanding of the Yellow Pages & Directory Publishing industry at both the market and company level, from growth rates and three-year revenue forecasts, to company profiles, analysis of key trends, competitive strategies and more.

Use this report to uncover the driving forces shaping the strength and direction of the overall market:

• The state of the overall Yellow Pages & Directory Publishing industry in the United States, including number of books, circulation and revenue
• The emergence of syndicated usage research as an industry tool to combat other media battling for US advertising dollars
• Insight into the changing competitive landscape, from the impact of start-up directories on incumbent books to the growth in Internet-only and Hispanic directory markets
• Insider views of recent mergers & acquisitions, including AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth Corporation that created a $5.8 billion Yellow Pages titan
• And more

This volume is packed with the information you need to help benchmark your success, size revenues, pinpoint investment activity drivers, identify growth opportunities and much more:

• Revenue broken out by Telco segment and Independent segment
• Three-year revenue/market share projections through 2008
• Advertising spending, rates and trends, including overall page volume, page billings, double half column (DHC) rates and more
• Over 40 charts and graphs
• 25+ company profiles that span RBOCs, independents, online-only directories and printers/suppliers

Additional Information

Methodology

pages directory publishing industry in terms of revenues, growth and market share for leading publishers, as well as trends and forces that are shaping the market overall. Simba has been tracking, reporting on and providing analysis to the yellow pages industry since 1985. The data included in this report is built on that foundation.

To reach its conclusions in this report, Simba embarked on an extensive research project that included in-depth interviews with leading players in the industry, as well as experts, industry association members and Wall Street analysts. The data, including estimates and projections for future performance, was then tabulated. While market estimates were based on Simba's analysis of the statistical and numerical data mentioned above, more abstract information was also factored in, such as market trends, individual company strategies and broader economic forecasts. It should be noted that this is merely a cursory description of a complex and systematic process of information gathering and analysis.

The following section describes what Simba has included and excluded in its yellow pages definitions, as a clear understanding of what is being counted is essential to understanding the market size totals contained in this report. Unless otherwise noted, the figures contained in this report are for U.S.-based operations only. The company profiles all contain information gained from interviews, Simba estimates and publicly available information sources.

Segmentation of the Yellow Pages Industry

The yellow pages publishing market can be broken down into two segments: telephone company (telco) publishers and independent (non-telco) publishers. The telephone company publisher segment includes the yellow pages units of the four regional Bell operating companies -- BellSouth, SBC, Qwest and Verizon. It also includes the yellow pages units of independent telephone service providers (telephone companies that are not affiliated with an RBOC), such as Alltel and CenturyTel. The non-telco independent publisher segment includes companies that are not affiliated with a phone company. These companies publish competitive directories -- directories that were launched to compete with previously existing directories published by incumbent local telephone companies in their telephone markets.

Sources of Information

Primary Research

• Interviews with key executives within the industry and culled from internal database for background information.
• Current and archived content from Simba's newsletter, Yellow Pages & Directory Report, and market research reports, Yellow Pages Market Forecast, Independent Yellow Pages Markets, Worldwide Yellow Pages Markets and Internet Yellow Pages.

Secondary Research

• Annual reports/SEC filings
• Interviews with financial analysts
• Industry association surveys
• Industry conferences and events
• Presentations made by publishers to investors
• Marketing materials
• Press releases
• Other government and company resources

Methodology for Projecting/Estimating Results When reported information was not available because a company is privately held or does not publicly release segment revenue and earnings figures, estimates were developed by Simba Information using various combinations of the sources listed above. Simba also uses: historical trends, general guidance provided by company executives, size of competitors and relative sizing based on customer observations. All Simba estimates in this report are marked (E) for estimate.

Market projections and forecasts are made by using historical trend analysis, compound annual growth rates, forecasts provided by the companies themselves in interviews, quarterly/yearly earnings reports and anecdotal information provided by the sources listed above. If a figure is restated from a previously published report, it means Simba has obtained new data from a company source and has factored that updated information into its estimates.

Simba analysts also work closely with the financial investment/analyst community to develop their estimates in accordance with market fluctuations and changes in the economy.