IAC 1st-quarter revenue rises, helped by higher revenue from search, Match dating businesses
By APWednesday, July 28, 2010
IAC revenue up in 1Q, results beat analyst views
SAN FRANCISCO — IAC/InterActiveCorp reported stronger second-quarter revenues Wednesday, citing growth in its search and Match online dating businesses. Profits fell compared to last year, however, because that quarter included a bump from the sale of its Match Europe operations.
For the April-June quarter, the company run by billionaire Barry Diller earned $13.6 million, or 12 cents per share, down 67 percent from $40.8 million, or 28 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
When excluding one-time items, including the $116.8 million gain from the sale of Match Europe, IAC earned 24 cents per share — 4 cents more that what analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for.
Revenue climbed nearly 19 percent to $402.9 million, more than $20 million more than the $382.6 million analysts expected.
Much of the growth stemmed from New York-based IAC’s core search business, which includes the search engine Ask.com and reference site Dictionary.com and brings in money from online advertising. Revenue in this unit rose 18 percent to $197.2 million.
The increase is similar to what IAC reported in the first three months of the year, and shows the business is continuing to see improvements after a slump in the online ad market plagued it throughout most of last year.
Both Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. also reported growth in online advertising during the quarter, though Yahoo’s was much lower than Google’s.
IAC’s second-largest unit, Match, which includes dating websites such as Match.com and Chemistry.com, saw revenue climb 10 percent to $97 million. That was helped by a big jump in subscribers: The number of paid Match users shot up 48 percent year over year to 1.7 million by the end of June.
In IAC’s media and other business, which includes comedy website CollegeHumor and invitation website Evite, revenue rose 34 percent to $59.6 million. IAC said the increase stemmed from the inclusion of Notional, a video production company it started last summer, and growth at sites such as Gifts.com.
IAC also reported growth in its ServiceMagic business, which runs websites that match up homeowners with home-improvement contractors. This unit’s revenue climbed 17 percent to $49.5 million as more people made and accepted service requests.
Tags: North America, San Francisco, United States
