GoTo, Priceline Losses Lower Than Expected
GoTo.com said its net loss narrowed more than expected in the second quarter as revenue soared sixfold.
Pasadena-based GoTo.com posted a loss of $11.2 million or 23 cents a share, compared with a loss of $7 million, or 20 cents, a year ago, a much better performance than the 31-cent loss analysts expected, according to First Call/Thomson Financial. Revenue grew to $21 million from $3.6 million.
GoTo.com, whose search services appear on Web sites run by firms such as Go2Net Inc. and EarthLink Inc., makes money by auctioning top listings for specific businesses, categories, products and other search terms. Through two acquisitions since November, it has added services for comparing prices of retail goods and searching Web auctions.
GoTo said it had about 29,000 advertisers at the end of June, up from about 10,000 last June. The company estimates it has a current reach of more than 24 million unique users.
GoTo.com shares rose $2.94 to close at $20.13 on Nasdaq, before the results were released.
Meanwhile, Priceline.com Inc. also said its second-quarter loss narrowed more than expected in the latest quarter, but the company’s shares tumbled 22% on nagging doubts about its future prospects.
Priceline, which began selling “name-your-own-price” airline tickets over the Internet in April 1998, had a net loss of $1.6 million, or 1 cent a share, compared with $13.9 million, or 10 cents, a year ago, a better performance than the 2 cents analysts expected.
Revenue more than tripled to $352.1 million from $111.6 million, topping the $331.2-million average forecast of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial, as Priceline added 1.5 million new customers for a total 6.8 million.
But investors may have hoped for even higher results after Internet search service Yahoo Inc. beat its second-quarter revenue forecasts by more than $30 million, analysts said.
In addition, the amount of revenue generated by fees from licensing and royalties, co-marketing programs and products such as home mortgages and automobiles unexpectedly fell from the previous quarter, analysts said.
Investors also may be concerned that the company won’t be able to offer as many airline seats during the peak summer travel months after Priceline.com executives said on a conference call that available seats could be harder to come by.
In the stock’s biggest single-day drop ever, Priceline shares slid $8.94 to close at $31.13 on Nasdaq in heavy trading.
At a Glance
Other technology-sector earnings, excluding one-time gains or charges unless noted, include:
* MP3.com Inc. said its second-quarter loss narrowed to $5.2 million, or 8 cents a share from $6.3 million, or 22 cents, a year ago, much better than the 13-cent loss analysts expected, as revenue rose more than tenfold to $20.2 million from $1.9 million. The online music company’s results excluded several one-time charges, including a $150-million charge for the estimated total costs related to copyright infringement lawsuits with record labels and publishers.
* Power-One Inc.’s second-quarter earnings jumped more than fivefold to $10.6 million, or 28 cents a share, from $1.86 million, or 6 cents, a year ago, including acquisition costs, on higher sales of devices that ensure steady flows of electricity to telecommunications equipment. The Camarillo-based company said profit excluding the acquisition costs was 38 cents, well above the 30 cents analysts expected. Revenue more than doubled to $113.8 million from $51.7 million, with sales to telecommunications companies nearly tripling to $74 million. Power-One said its order backlog was valued at about $196 million at quarter’s end, 81% more than three months earlier.
* Silicon Graphics Inc. reported a loss in its fiscal fourth quarter, contrasted with profit a year ago, and it named a new chief financial officer. The maker of computer workstations reported a net loss of $607.6 million, or $3.27 a share, as sales dropped 36% to $534.1 million. In the year-earlier quarter, Silicon had net income of $157.8 million, or 81 cents. Silicon named as its new CFO Hal Covert, who has been chief financial officer at Red Hat Inc. for a little more than four months. Before joining Red Hat in March, Covert was financial chief at Adobe Systems Inc. At Silicon, he replaces Betsy Rafael, who resigned in May.
* Texas Instruments Inc. said second-quarter net income grew 37% to $525 million, or 31 cents a share, a penny better than expectations, as strong world demand for wireless communications showed no sign of flagging. TI, which makes the chips used in about two-thirds of the world’s digital cellular phones, said revenue was up 18% to $2.84 billion.
