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Technology Stocks : QXL.Com (QXLC) - euro ebay? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: donkeyman who wrote (99)	10/31/1999 9:40:00 PM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306

headlines as we head into monday on qxl: The Bigger, Better Picture.(Hardware Review)(Evaluation) PC Magazine, 11/16/1999, 8345 words. New technology makes a visible difference, as seen in the 50-inch Pioneer PDP-502MX. Although plasma displays are expensive, their thinness and sharp ... City: Hustlers are hitting the net Do not become the mark of a confidence ... The Sunday Telegraph (United Kingdom), 10/31/1999, 780 words. The internet is a magnificent force for good in the way it can instantly disperse information and facilitate commerce and education. It is unregulated and free. But it can also be used for malevolent purposes ... Head of LVMH close to acquiring British auction house Phillips: report Agence France-Presse, 10/30/1999, 305 words. PARIS, Oct 30 (AFP) - Bernard Arnault, the head of French luxury goods group LVMH and one of France's richest businessmen, is close to buying British auction house Phillips for more than 70 million pounds ... UK: DIARY - UK Equities - to November 19. Reuters English News Service, 10/29/1999, 612 words. * All times in GMT * All figures in million pounds unless otherwise stated Forward diary of events AFX (UK), 10/29/1999, 622 words. Friday Oct 29. INTERIMS Sceptical Geldof rules out float for Deckchair The Times of London, 10/29/1999, 242 words. BOB GELDOF, the rock star turned entrepreneur, yesterday ruled out a short term flotation of Deckchair.com, his Internet travel company, and said he would instead raise finance from venture capital funds ... QXL.com PLC - Stabilisation Notice Regulatory News Service, 10/29/1999, 207 words. LETTER TO COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENTS OFFICE QXL.COM PLC (the "Company") City: Freeserve move The Daily Telegraph, 10/29/1999, 24 words. FREESERVE, Britain's biggest internet service provider, yesterday launched an online auction service in direct competition with schemes run by rivals QXL.com and Yahoo! U.K.'s freeserve to offer online auctions National Post, 10/29/1999, 136 words. LONDON - Freeserve PLC, Britain's top Internet service provider, said it will enter the crowded market for online auctions next month, fulfilling a promise made to investors at the time of its share sale in ... UK: Property tax to soar as firms go virtual - Web guru. Reuters English News Service, 10/28/1999, 452 words. LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - If the Internet succeeds as Gordon Brown hopes, future British finance ministers may lose great chunks of revenue and be forced to slap huge new taxes on homes and offices instead, a Web guru ...

To: donkeyman who wrote (99)	11/9/1999 7:08:00 AM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306

earnings - good growth member +126%, items +143%, users +84%, ebay not much of an impact November 9, 1999 QXL.com 1H Pretax Loss GBP14.0M Vs GBP363,000 QXL.com PLC - London 6 Mos Sept. 30: 1999 1998 Pretax Profit (GBP14.0 mln) (GBP363,000) Sales 3.2 mln 746,000 Earnings Per Share -a (52.7 p) b. (1.2 p) Parentheses denote a loss a. After tax. b. Restated to reflect an effective 10-for-1 share split in September 1999. LONDON -- Pan-European online auction company QXL.com PLC (QXLC) said Tuesday its number of registered users grew to over 246,000 by the end of the second quarter, up 84% from the first quarter. The U.K.-based company said member numbers grew 126% to 130,000, and the number of items listed for auction increased 143% to 871,000. Gross auction value rose 86% to GBP3.65 million, from GBP1.96 million in the first quarter. The company also announced a partnership deal with AOL Germany, giving it a high profile presence on AOL Germany's homepage and key positions on other AOL Germany pages. It already has partnerships with AOL in France and the U.K. "This agreement will allow QXL.de to accelerate its growth by delivering a high quality service to over one million AOL users," the company said. QXL made a pretax loss of GBP14 million in the half year ended Sept. 30, 1999, widening a GBP363,000 loss for the same period the year earlier. In the second quarter, the company reported a loss of GBP11.1 million before tax, compared with GBP2.9 mill ion in the first quarter ended June 30, 1999. Turnover rose 324% to GBP3.16 million for the half year and rose 57% to GBP1.9 million in the second quarter. The company now conducts auctions in five languages and currencies: English, German, French, Italian and Dutch. It plans to introduce one further site by the end of the financial year, which will increase its coverage of the European business-to-consumer electronic commerce market to over 90%. Chief executive Jim Rose told Dow Jones that QXL had seen significant growth despite the continued increase in the number of rival online auction services, with U.S. giant eBay Inc. (EBAY) among those now targeting the European online auction market. Over 70% of purchases made via its services are repeat purchases, and the company said it was still seeing an upward trend in that indicator, despite the competition. He said QXL was working hard to build on its 'first-mover' advantage of being the original online auctioneer in key European markets, backing that up with an off-line advertising campaign to grow brand awareness among those not yet on the Internet. E-bay has been in the U.K. market since March and in Germany since June but hasn't made much of an impact, he noted. "We're really an e-retailer," said Rose. "We expect to see competition there, but it really is a consumer experience. It's not like the free ISP's - as long as customers continue to have a wide range of experience with good content and service we'll do well." QXL expects growth in its membership base to accelerate as it maintains the current level of spending on marketing. Rose said the company would work hard to avoid the problems that have recently hit eBay, which disappointed investors late in October when it signaled it would have to keep spending heavily to upgrade its technology. "We have a very robust, scaleable system," he said. "We can scale and deal with the volume we are seeing here...and going forward we'll continue to do that." During the first half, the company spent around GBP1.8 million on technology, and sees a slight acceleration going forward. During the period under review, consumer-to-consumer auctions grew more quickly than business-to-consumer auctions during the period, with gross auction value now split fairly evenly between the two. In the current quarter, the company anticipates introducing new value-added services for consumer-to consumer auctions, including shipping and escrow services for higher value items. It also intends to introduce commissions for merchandise sold between members, in line with other online auction sites. "We expect to see a continuation of the trend of increasing gross auction value, but with turnover and margins reflecting the shift (in business models)," the company said. QXL listed on the London Stock Exchange and on Nasdaq on Oct. 14. -By Karen Chan; 44-171-842-9269; karen.chan@dowjones.com