PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, 22 December 2004

First step towards complete Baltic region coverage

In December 2004 Zapera launched a new Estonian online access panel, thereby expanding the company’s online access panel capabilities East into the Baltic region. In addition to the new Estonian panel, Zapera owns panels in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland – totalling more than 80.000 respondents.

Client demand for single point of contact for regional research needs has driven the company’s panel establishment strategy. “Recently we have seen our Nordic clients focus more and more on the Baltic region,” comments Managing Director, Lars Lund-Nielsen. “While we have excellent partnerships with panel providers in most Western European countries that allow us to cover these markets satisfactorily, we are compelled to establish our own panels in the Baltic region to ensure quality and efficiency for our clients.”

The coming years will see Zapera transforming from the leading online research provider in the Nordic region, to becoming the leading player in the expanded Baltic region.

“The establishment of the Estonian panel is the first step in our geographic expansion,” says Research Director, Mads Stenbjerre. “We will be looking to establish panels in Russia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania in the near future, so that we can offer our clients one-stop access to high quality online research across all the markets in Northern Europe.”

Currently, Zapera’s Estonian panel is just over 3.500 people strong and it is expected to grow further to a size of 7.000 members in the course of 2005.

Zapera is currently conducting a parallel study to compare the results of the panel with data collected through traditional methods (CATI, postal and personal interviews). This is a standard procedure that the company uses to demonstrate the quality of new panels.

Two of Zapera’s current clients – Nordea, the Nordic financial services company, and TV3, the Nordic broadcaster – are taking part in the initial parallel-testing in order to evaluate the usefulness of the panel for their future research needs in Estonia.

The Estonian panel has been recruited relative to quotas that match the actual distribution of the Estonian population in terms of age, gender and region. Recruitment and all panel communication is conducted in both Estonian and Russian.

About Estonia

Internet penetration in Estonia is at 47% - well ahead of the other baltic countries and equal to Western European levels. The Estonian population counts 1.35 million people. Approximately 30% are part of the Russian speaking ethnic minority.

About Zapera

Zapera is the leading Nordic online market research institute. Zapera consists of 30 people dedicated to online research with offices in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The company runs panels in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Estonia that comprise more than 80.000 members.

For further comments please contact:

Managing Director, Lars Lund-Nielsen, phone (+45) 4080 8040 or e-mail lln@zapera.com

Research Director, Mads Stenbjerre, phone (+45) 2673 0696 or e-mail ms@zapera.com