FTSE 100 companies are increasingly opting for hybrid online annual reports, which combine HTML and PDF or Excel sections, according to new research from Radley Yeldar.
The consultancy finds that 37 companies produced hybrid online reports this year, up from 28 in 2010, making hybrids the most popular option among UK blue chips.
Hybrid reports use HTML for the front section, while making the accounts at the back available as a PDF or Excel download.
The number of full HTML reports, by comparison, fell from 45 in 2010 to 33 this year.
The trend away from full HTML and toward hybrid reports has been going on for two years now, explains Elizabeth Edwards, a corporate reporting consultant at Radley Yeldar.
‘There was a rush into online annual reporting and a lot of people went straight into full HTML, and I think they are starting to reconsider how to actually get the best return on investment,’ she says.
‘It’s about people thinking through whether they are better off allocating their budget to the front end and providing the back end in a downloadable form.’
According to the research, 16 companies produced PDF online reports this year, down just one from 17 in 2010.
The findings will be included in Radley Yeldar’s annual study into corporate reporting ‘How does it stack up?’, due to come out mid-August.
FTSE 100 online reports
| Type | 2011 | 2010 |
| Hybrid HTML | 37 | 28 |
| Full HTML | 33 | 45 |
| PDFs | 16 (4 are interactive) | 17 |
| Image-based | 7 | 7 |
| Flash-based | 6 | 1 |
Note: numbers do not add up to 100 as in each year some new listings did not have compliant UK annual reports when the research was conducted.
Source: Radley Yeldar
