Intuit Reports Loss in Line With Expectations

Intuit Inc., the largest maker of personal finance software, on Tuesday posted a loss for its latest quarter that was in line with expectations and reflected seasonal business patterns.

The Mountain View-based company, whose business is normally strongest during the winter and spring due to tax filings, reported a loss of $49.2 million, or 83 cents a share, including financial charges of $22.8 million, for its fiscal first quarter ended Oct. 31. For the year-ago quarter, Intuit posted a loss of $12.8 million, or 27 cents.

Revenue rose to $112 million from $96 million.

On a pro forma basis excluding charges, Intuit posted a loss of $26.8 million, or 45 cents a share. That compares with a year-ago loss of $12.1 million, or 26 cents, and was just ahead of Wall Street expectations of a loss of 46 cents per share.

Intuit, publisher of the popular Quicken personal financial software and TurboTax tax preparation software, has been aggressively building up its Web site--where it sells insurance and mortgages--to boost revenue. It said it had solid increases in advertising and transaction revenue from its Web ventures.

The company was also helped in its first quarter by an earlier introduction--five weeks earlier than last year--of its Quicken99 software, as well as by good demand for its QuickBooks program for small businesses.

Intuit said traffic to its Quicken.com Web site continued to grow. For the first time, monthly page views exceeded 100 million, reaching 107 million in October and representing an annual growth rate of 410%, the company said.

The company typically posts a profit and higher revenue during the quarters ending in January and April, and posts losses in the July and October quarters.

Intuit reported results after the close of regular U.S. trading. Its shares fell $4.25 to close at $59.88 on Nasdaq, close to their 52-week high of $67.93 and above their 12-month low of $26.25.