Looks like continued steady growth in their core markets -- 43% growth in gross value of transactions! Very little cash burn. Anyone listen to the CC?
InfoSpace Reports Fourth Quarter and Year End Financial Results; Merchant Services Processed More Than $1 Billion in Transactions During the Quarter Renewed Agreements with ALLTEL and AOL, Among Others; Wireless Revenues From the U.S. and Europe Grew More Than 10% Over Last Quarter
BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan 29, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- InfoSpace, Inc. (Nasdaq:INSP), a provider of wireless and Internet software and application services, today announced fourth quarter revenues of $31.4 million and full year revenues of $161.9 million.
Pro forma net loss for the fourth quarter was $5.4 million, or a loss of $0.02 per basic share. Pro forma net loss for the year was $18.2 million, or $0.06 per basic share. Pro forma excludes amortization of intangibles and certain other items as detailed in the footnotes in the following financial tables.
Based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), net loss for the fourth quarter was $98.8 million, or a loss of $0.32 per basic share. Net loss for the year was $498.8 million, or a loss of $1.57 per basic share.
Financial and operating highlights:
-- Merchant services processed more than $1 billion in
transactions during the quarter, up from $700 million reported
last quarter. Number of transactions processed grew to more
than 12 million, up from 9 million reported last quarter.
-- Wireless revenues from the U.S. and Europe grew more than 10%
over last quarter.
-- Renewed agreements with ALLTEL and AOL, among others, and
announced new agreements with merchant partners Dominion
(Verizon Canada), Barnes&Noble.com and Moneris and wireline
partners Overture and AT&T.
-- Net cash used in operations was $3.6 million.
-- Balance sheet remains strong with no debt. InfoSpace has cash,
investment grade securities and a federal payroll tax
receivable totaling $307 million. In addition, the Company has
investments in private and public securities of $47 million.
"We are feeling better about our near and long-term prospects and believe we have turned a corner in our business," said Naveen Jain, chairman and CEO of InfoSpace. "My optimism stems from our ability to renew existing contracts, as we did with ALLTEL and AOL, launch new services with existing partners, as we did with AT&T, Verizon and Cingular and sign new customers, as we did with Dominion (Verizon Canada), Omne Communications and Moneris, among others."
"We are pleased with our results as they demonstrate that we are focused on securing long-term recurring revenue streams, capitalizing on our strong balance sheet by investing in our future, and reaching our number one goal of pro-forma break-even by the end of 2002," said Tammy Halstead, chief financial officer of InfoSpace.
Wireless
InfoSpace's Wireless group continues to expand its position as a leading provider of innovative solutions designed to help wireless carriers increase usage and drive new revenue streams. For the year, InfoSpace exceeded its guidance of more than 5 million registered wireless subscribers.
During the fourth quarter, InfoSpace renewed contracts with partners, launched new wireless data solutions with carriers in the U.S. and Europe, and announced the availability of innovative new solutions designed to further drive adoption and usage of mobile data services.
InfoSpace launched new commerce services with AT&T. The services enable AT&T subscribers to shop from more than 60 merchants directly from their mobile device and purchase products from multiple merchants at once with just a few keystrokes on their mobile device.
In addition, InfoSpace launched special event alerts campaigns for the 2001 baseball playoffs and for the NCAA football bowl season with several partners including Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless, ALLTEL and Cincinnati Bell. InfoSpace's baseball playoff alerts campaign helped increase new wireless alerts users across carrier partners who deployed the service by more than 35 percent.
In Dec., InfoSpace acquired substantially all of the assets of GiantBear, Inc. The acquired technologies include new SMS capabilities that make it faster and easier for wireless subscribers to instantly access personalized information by pressing just a few keys. To request information, a user need only press the "pound" key twice followed by a pre-configured number then press "send." Within seconds, an SMS message containing the requested information will be delivered to the user's mobile device. For example, a user could press "pound-pound-one" for the latest traffic reports or "pound-pound-two" to receive personalized stock quotes or sports scores. This innovative "pound-pound" technology uses the existing global SS7 network standard as an input mechanism, allowing the delivery of services to any digital wireless device, even handsets that are not WAP or two-way SMS capable.
In addition, Streaming Wireless Audio Technology enhances InfoSpace's wireless entertainment services, and extends their reach to include even analog wireless phones. This service offers users anytime, anywhere access to personalized, Internet-based streaming multimedia over the voice channel of their mobile handset. Sources can include any Internet-based streaming audio such as live and pre-recorded news and radio, personal music sources and more.
The acquisition also brings to InfoSpace new carrier relationships including Western Wireless, among others.
InfoSpace also announced a research and development (R&D) speech initiative under which Bell Mobility Investments (BMI), a Canadian corporate venture company created by Bell Canada and Bell Mobility, will fund a portion of InfoSpace's R&D activities including VoiceXML-based voice activated dialing (VAD) application.
Merchant
During the fourth quarter, Merchant services processed more than $1 billion in transactions for the quarter, up from the $700 million reported last quarter. Also, InfoSpace continues to see strong growth in the number of transactions processed which grew to more than 12 million, up from 9 million reported last quarter.
Merchant Services continues to show growth in merchant transactions such as payment processing, shopping and merchant promotions. In late October, InfoSpace announced a strategic five-year relationship with Dominion Information Services Inc., Canada's second largest directory publisher that is owned by U.S.-based Verizon Information Services. Verizon Information Services and InfoSpace announced a similar U.S. agreement in April of 2001.
During the fourth quarter, InfoSpace announced an agreement with Moneris Solutions, Inc. Under the agreement, Moneris will offer InfoSpace's Authorize.Net(TM) payment processing solutions to its merchant customers.
Finally, InfoSpace announced that the company's Authorize.Net payment processing platform will offer real-time payer authentication anti-fraud technology that meets Verified by Visa compliance standards. The new service, which complies with the guidelines set forth under the Visa 3-D Secure global interoperability standard, offers participating merchants a fast and effective means to confirm the identity of a user, increasing the security of online transactions.
Wireline and Broadband
During the quarter more than 3.6 billion queries were made to InfoSpace's wireline services.
Wireline's fourth quarter was highlighted by the purchase of certain Excite.com assets significantly increasing the Company's position and distribution for its search and directory products.
With search being a primary focus of Wireline, during the quarter InfoSpace announced a renewed search agreement with Overture, formerly GoTo, until 2004. Also during the quarter, America Online, Inc. renewed its wireline agreement for InfoSpace to continue to power directory services for several of AOL's Web properties.
On the broadband front, InfoSpace recently announced a new relationship with U.K. cable operator Omne Communications. Omne selected InfoSpace to provide a platform of Internet applications and services across the PC and TV. The services will be available to subscribers within Omne's digital network enabling them to access and personalize information, applications and services from either the PC or TV. The launch of Omne's Portal Services is expected during the first quarter of 2002 in conjunction with the roll-out and availability of Omne's dial-up, DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), TV and telephony services.
A replay of the conference call will be available in the investor relations section of the Web site www.infospace.com approximately one hour after the call until Fri., Feb. 1 at 6 p.m. PST. |
