In our annual benchmarking we assess the quality of online annual reports of listed companies of the DAX/MDAX (Germany), the Dow (USA), the ATX (Austria), the EuroStoxx and the SMI (Switzerland) since 2003. The FTSE (Great Britain) and the AEX/AMX (Netherlands) have been included in the analysis since 2005. This year, we have also included the CAC (France) and the MIB (Italy).
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We have looked at over 400 companies in July and August. In a first step we determined how their current annual reports can be accessed on their corporate websites.
In general, we cluster three different ways of presenting annual reports:
- PDF – a PDF file of the report can be downloaded [2009: 29,3 %]
- JPG show – the individual pages of the printed report are converted into JPG/images. A HTML framework hardly allows anything more than just flipping through this image gallery [2009: 22,0 %]
- HTML presentation – the content is fully converted into HTML [2009: 48,7 %]
While PDF downloads and JPG shows are cost- and time-efficient ways of presentation, the complete conversion of the report’s content into HTML is the only way to make full use of the internet’s potential.
Among other things, this includes links to related content and a search function that helps to locate easily the wished-for information. The use of XLS tables and the possibility of directly extracting text from the report facilitate processing the data. Finally, HTML reports offer an interactive user experience, as, for example, a file library, an interactive comparison of key figures or an online glossary can be integrated.
Since starting this survey in 2003 we have been noticing a clear trend towards high-quality HTML reports. Currently nearly every other company we assessed [48,7 %] offers an HTML version of their annual report. The percentage of companies which publish a JPG show [22,0 %] or make a PDF document [29,3 %] available for download has been decreasing continuously. Apparently there is also a connection between company size and the type of presentation they choose: the smaller the company, the more likely they are to offer just a PDF or a JPG show.
All in all, this year’s results are in line with the long-term trend. In spite of the economic crisis the percentage of HTML reports has slightly risen to 48,7%, however, the dynamic slows down [previous year: 47,3%]. The share of JPG shows remains steady at 22,0% [previous year: 21,4 %]. With a percentage of 29,3% PDF downloads have again decreased [previous year: 31,3 %].
However a close look at the individual indices shows big regional differences. Both in Great Britain [64 %, previous year: 58 %] and in the Netherlands [42 %, previous year: 37 %] there is an ongoing trend towards fully-fledged HTML reports. In contrast, in Switzerland [10 %, previous year: 16 %] the already low share of HTML reports has noticeably sunken further.
On the following pages you will find our analyses of HTML reports, broken down into the different indices.
