>London, Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- QXL.com Plc, the U.K.'s largest online auctioneer, said it hired DoubleClick Inc., the world's largest online advertising company, to sell ad space on its Web sites as part of efforts to boost revenue.
DoubleClick will place ads on QXL's sites and in electronic mails to its 680,000 registered users, QXL said.
QXL, which lets users auction items such as collectibles and toys, is working to increase revenue as it faces competition throughout Europe from eBay Inc., the world's largest online auctioneer. QXL yesterday formed an alliance with Lycos Europe NV to drive more traffic to its Web sites.
Shares of QXL fell 3 pence, or 4.2 percent, to 68.5p, after trading as low as 65p during the day. The stock has lost 62 percent of its value since it agreed to buy German rival Ricardo.de AG on May 16.
QXL suffers from ``the uncertainty of the Nasdaq, of Internet stocks in general, and the company is still digesting the acquisition of Ricardo,'' said Stefan Slowinski, an analyst at Robertson Stephens, who has a ``buy'' recommendation on the stock. ``There's a lot of value in the stock, but I can't see it rally before September at the earliest.''
QXL was the most visited auction site in the U.K. in June, with 440,000 Internet users who clicked on the site at least once, while 278,000 British users clicked on eBay's British and American Web sites, according to MMXI Europe, a research company.
Aug/02/2000 12:08 ET |
