The group publishes Folha de S.Paulo, the largest circulation paper in the country, which since 1986 keeps the leadership among quality general-interest newspapers in Brazil.[2] In the last decade, the group nearly tripled its revenue, getting to R$2.7 billion in 2010.[1]EBITDA reached R$600 million in 2011.[3]
In February 2012, Folha widened its lead among prestige newspapers in Brazil, with an average of 297.5 thousand monthly copies in circulation, 12% ahead of O Globo and 20.3% ahead of O Estado de S. Paulo, competitors in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states. Besides Folha, the group publishes Agora São Paulo newspaper and has 50% shares at Valor Econômico, in partnership with Organizações Globo. Both are circulation leaders, respectively, in popular journalism and business journalism markets.
Folha did the first real-time online newspaper in 1995, also a market leader among Brazilian news websites, with 232.8 million pageviews in March 2012. Amount of unique visitors was 19.2 million that month (audience measured by Omniture, which also provides metrics for Apple and CNN).
UOL, controlled by Grupo Folha, is the leading Brazilian company for Web content and services, with 27.8 million unique visitors and about 4.3 billion pageviews every month. Launched in April 1996, UOL offered both Web access and content in a single package, becoming the leading ISP in the country.[1] Later, it also specialized as an IT company, acting in ecommerce and epayments, gaming, dating websites, datacenters and IT solutions. In December 2010, UOL concluded the acquisition of Diveo Broadband Networks, becoming the third largest IT infrastructure services company in Latin America.
By the end of 2011, the group closed UOL's capital, buying back more than 17 million shares from minority shareholders and reaching more than 74% stock ownership; the group of shareholders led by businessman João Alves de Queiroz Filho, controller of the holding Hypermarcas, remained as a minority shareholder at UOL, with 25% of shares. Grupo Folha keeps the management.[1]
Grupo Folha owns business units Transfolha (logistics) and Folhagráfica (printing). It also owns shares at Plural (printing) and SPDL (logistics).[1]
Plural, a 50-50 joint-venture with Quad/Graphics controlled by Grupo Folha, is the main graphic industry with offset printing presses in South America.[1] SPDL is a partnership between Folha (50%) and Estado (50%) groups, which distributes the newspapers by both companies.[1]
Grupo Folha also owns Datafolha, one of the leading polling institutes in Brazil; Publifolha press, which sold more than one million books in 2010; Três Estrelas imprint, released in 2012 to publish humanities books; and Folhapress newswire.
The group's business strategy has increased the production and distribution of journalistic content designed to new technological formats, from tablets (like the iPad and Galaxy) to mobile phones, as well as in social media.[1]
In 2012, the paper began producing and broadcasting at São Paulo's TV Cultura the newscast TV Folha, aired every Sunday at 8PM. On its first show, on 11 March 2012, the show was seen in 60,000 homes in São Paulo metropolitan area, according to Ibope ratings.
Folhapress: newswire; gathers news and sells pictures, articles, columns, drawings and graphic devices daily, both from the editorial content produced by Folha de S.Paulo, Agora São Paulo and other Grupo Folha companies and from partners;[8]
Acervo Folha: Digital archive of Grupo Folha newspaper editions since 1921;
Publifolha: Grupo Folha's book-publishing division, created in 1995; has released more than 1,000 titles and currently has 600 books in print. Publifolha concentrates on the news, tourism, languages, general reference, children's tales and cooking areas. It is currently the leading travel guide publisher in Brazil, thanks mainly to the “Visual Guide” series, which offers information about countries, cities and regions, with travel itineraries and leisure suggestions for tourists.[9]
Três Estrelas: book imprint created in 2012 covering the non-fiction field, with books on journalism, communication, history, politics, sociology, economics, philosophy, psychoanalysis, scientific information and biography. The imprint's name was inspired by the three stars that accompany the logo of Folha de S.Paulo, the flagship newspaper published by the company that owns the imprint.[10]
Plural Editora e Gráfica: a joint-venture between Grupo Folha – to which newspaper Folha de S. Paulo belongs – and American printing conglomerate Quad/Graphics, the largest private printing company in the world. Plural, headquartered at Santana de Parnaíba (Greater São Paulo), started its operations in 1996.[11]
Transfolha (Magazines and Newspapers' Transportation Company); Transfolha is the Grupo Folha unit responsible for transporting and delivering print products (newspapers and magazines) as well as e-commerce parcels. It operates in 780 Brazilian cities and towns, both on behalf of Grupo Folha and for third parties. Currently, Transfolha has a monthly average throughput of 5.2 million newspapers, 650,000 magazines and 675,000 e-commerce parcels.[12]
SPDL: São Paulo Distribuição e Logística, a 50–50 newspaper distribution partnership with otherwise competitor Grupo Estado;
^ abcdefghPinto, Ana Estela de Sousa (2012). "Grupo Folha". In Alcino Leite Neto (ed.). Folha (in Portuguese) (1 ed.). São Paulo: Publifolha. ISBN978-85-7914-371-7.
US$ 3.0 Million (2021)
