Kolporter prepares to displace RUCH as top distributor

The Kolporter capital group, the second largest press distributor, posted a H1 profit of zł.13.09, compared to zł.2.17 million profit in the same period of 2003. The group's income increased by 10% to zł.973.3 million. "Such a dynamic increase is the effect of cost-cutting and widening our portfolio. This year, we plan to improve our sales by 15% as well as increase our profit by 50%. After such promising first half results, we predict that we might even exceed our expectations," said Kolporter's spokesman Maciej Topolski. He stressed that the company's 2003 investments were a major influence on this year's financial results, as they spent zł.49 million on their IT network. Kolporter hopes that by the end of the year they will have increased their market share to 40%, and by the end of 2005 to 50%, but they are would not reveal how they intend to do this. This year Kolporter will spend additional zł.30 million on extending their IT network. (Puls Biznesu, p. 10) D.W.