LONDON: Digital media owners in the UK predict that their revenues will grow by 15% in 2013, according to a report.

The annual Organisation Census from the UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP), the trade body, found that members anticipated growth would come from a number of different sources.

Advertising revenues and technology were most often cited. Some 88% said they expected to increase the paid-for elements of their websites, and a similar proportion had increased investment in technology.

Mobile and app development were a priority area of investment for 79% of respondents, followed by responsive design on 71% and data on 68%.

When asked for their top five priority revenues streams, advertising, both display and creative solutions, scored 56%, and mobile and subscriptions were mentioned by 47%.

"Technology is proving a key focus for driving revenue growth but is increasingly a major challenge," observed John Barnes, chairman of the AOP.

"Digital media owners must deliver a consistent, top-quality user experience with full content engagement across multiple devices and platforms," he said. "[But] the commercial model for each individual channel does not automatically offer a return on the required investment.

"Improving reader revenues and revenues from assets such as data is going to help," Barnes added.

Media owners are also collaborating more in order to avoid duplication and offset the high cost of investment, the AOP survey suggested.

Some 85% of respondents said they would or are already collaborating on technology with other publishers, such as licensing another publisher"s platform. This total is up from 72% last year.

One respondent noted: "The industry is plagued by duplication of effort in digital platform development, very unlike the print supply chain, which is largely shared. Publishers should be talking to each other about collaboration for core functionality."

Data sourced from the Association of Online Publishers; additional content by Warc staff