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Technology Stocks : Booking Holdings (formerly Priceline) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dav who wrote (2176)	1/27/2000 3:24:00 PM
From: dav	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2743

Priceline.com loss narrows in 4th qtr Online seller sets revenue target of $1 bln in 2000 By Liza Roberts, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 2:17 PM ET Jan 27, 2000 NewsWatch NORWALK, Conn. (CBS.MW) -- Priceline.com, the Web site that lets consumers name their price for items like groceries, plane tickets, and cars, said Thursday it narrowed its loss in the fourth quarter by more than half to 6 cents per share, beating analysts' estimates. It also set a revenue target of $1 billion in 2000. Priceline's stock fell 1 3/4 to 64 1/2 in afternoon trading Thursday. Today on CBS MarketWatch Tech stocks, blue chips retreat Dell falls after Q4 warning Euro at new low vs. Euro Bank of Scotland sweetens NatWest bid Safeway bags higher sales Janus to invest $930 mln in Healtheon More top stories... CBS MarketWatch Columns Updated: 01/27/2000 2:18:44 PM ET "This was a landmark quarter for Priceline.com (PCLN: news, msgs) in terms of adding customers, increasing sales and margins, bringing on board new industry-leading suppliers and partners, and introducing new product initiatives," said Richard Braddock, Priceline's chairman and chief executive. The company said it lost $10 million, or 6 cents per share excluding items, compared to a $12.7 million, or 14 cents per share loss in the same period last year. Revenue surged 791 percent to $169.2 million over 1998 quarter as the company did an explosive number of new deals and alliances and piled on new customers. Gross margins were Priceline's highest yet at 14.2 percent. Looking forward, Braddock said the company is "comfortable" that its revenues will "increase sequentially from the fourth quarter of 1999 to the first quarter of 2000 at a rate of at least 30 percent." Priceline also set a target of $1 billion for revenue this year, which is more than double the company's revenue in '99. For the full year -- its first full year in operation -- Priceline said it lost $52.5 million, or $0.39 per share excluding items, compared to a loss of $44.4 million, or $0.55 per share the year before. Revenue was $482.4 million, versus $35.2 million in 1998. 1 million new customers Priceline said it added nearly a million new customers in the final quarter of the year, bringing its total to 3.8 million. Nearly half of those became customers in the last six months, the company said. Among other changes in the quarter, Priceline said it added several new name-your-own-price offers. It also added American Airlines, United Airlines, and US Airways to its airline service, meaning all eight major U.S. airlines now participate. Priceline says it believes it now accounts for over 3 percent of all leisure plane tickets sold in the U.S. Also, Priceline announced a co-marketing agreement with Travelocity.com and Preview Travel, and expanded Priceline.com auto services LLC to cover 26 states. In addition, it began a trial promotion with Ford that lets customers name their own price for a new car, and pick it up from a local dealership. All of this helped the company double the number of cars it sold in the fourth quarter from the level it sold in the third.