AEGIS, Europe’s biggest independent media buying agency, says that it is on track to double revenues from placing advertising on the internet this year as its clients seek alternatives to television and radio.

The company said yesterday that it expects to generate total sales of more than $200 million (£109 million) in 2005, up from about $100 million last year, with the proportion of sales contributed by new mediums rising rapidly from 13 per cent.

The first months of the year had been “characterised by an acceleration . . . of a switch in the allocation of budgets away from conventional broadcast and print media towards interactive and out of home media”.

Robert Lerwill, chief executive, said that the appetite for advertising in alternative mediums was being fuelled by changing technology and habits.

“People still watch television and read newspapers, but they also use their mobile phones to search for information as well as make calls, and they own personal video recorders that let them skip past the ads,” he said.

Isobar, the interactive division of Aegis, serves clients including adidas, the German sporting goods group, for which it created a global internet campaign, and Kodak, for which it built websites for its digital services. Mr Lerwill said the growth would continue to be driven by industry expansion and acquisitions.

Aegis said that revenues in the first quarter rose 12.5 per cent from the same period last year and organic revenue growth was 5.8 per cent. Client spending continued to grow, with Europe maintaining its recovery despite significant variations between markets.

Analysts at Numis Securities said: “We believe there is scope to upgrade our (pre-tax profit and earnings per share) forecast of £105 million by perhaps 2 per cent to 3 per cent to reflect the better-than-expected revenue performance in the year to date.”

Aegis shares fell ½p, to 98½p.

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