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Technology Stocks : NextCard, Inc. (NXCD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KS who wrote (58)	7/21/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: KS	Respond to of 192

News To print this story July 20, 1999 22:35 INTERVIEW - NextCard says Q2 revenues to beat estimates By Michael Kahn SAN FRANCISCO, July 20 (Reuters) - Internet-based credit card issuer NextCard Inc. expects its revenues for the second quarter to significantly exceed analyst expectations, although its per share loss should be in line with forecasts, the company's chief executive said. NextCard Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Lent told Reuters the San Francisco-based company's revenues would be well above the $1.7 million predicted by analysts for the second quarter and the $1.2 million in revenues it posted for all of 1998. "The revenue number will be significantly above what analysts had expected," Lent said in telephone interview. Earnings, however, would be more in line with analyst predictions of a loss of 46 cents a share, due to investment needed to build the business quickly, Lent said. NextCard, which went public in May with an offering that raised more than $130 million, is set to announce its second quarter earnings Aug. 5. It will be the first time the company has reported earnings publicly. Lent said the company has about a 25 percent share of the online credit card market. NextCard offers online credit card approval for Visa cards and markets its product primarily on the Internet. NextCard targets people with good credit who do a lot of business on the Internet, Lent said. At the close of the first quarter, the company had more than 66,000 customers. Lent attributed the better-than-expected revenues in part to a sophisticated database system that has allowed NextCard to identify sites on the Internet where the company gets more profitable customers. In doing this, NextCard has attracted greater balances and found cardholders who are willing to remain with the company after moving over a lot of debt because of features like a rewards program offering travel and retail perks, he added. "Our system identified a greater-than-expected number of sites that gave us highly profitable customers," Lent said. "This allowed us to grow the business at a more rapid rate than analysts had expected." NextCard stock was off 88 cents to close at $38.88 on Nasdaq.