another good tulip article for you...
kathy :)
herring.com
Nascent Net companies deliver upside surprises
By Eric C. Fleming
ZDII
April 30, 1999
The new kids on the Internet -- EarthWeb, Marketwatch.com, Autobytel.com, and Healtheon -- delivered upside earnings surprises.
Nascent Net companies deliver upside surprises
May's run for the IPO rose
IPO filings soar
EarthWeb (Nasdaq: EWBX), the most established of the foursome, reported a narrower-than-expected first quarter loss of $6.8 million, or 82 cents a share, as revenue gained more than 1,000 percent to $3.7 million.
The First Call consensus estimate of five analysts had been expecting a loss of 93 cents a share.
Healtheon just bought pharmacy network MedE America.
The MarketWatch IPO went gangbusters.
EarthWeb's IPO helped reboot the market.
Earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization of goodwill and intangible assets related to acquisitions (EBITA) was a loss of $5.5 million, or 67 cents per share in the current quarter, up from a loss of 27 cents on a pro forma basis in the year ago period.
In the quarter, EarthWeb bought Dice.com, an online headhunting firm that focuses on IT professionals; MicroHouse, a subscription-based content provider for the networking and hardware industries; Gocertify.com, a guide to IT certification programs; and The Perl Journal, a technical resource for Perl developers. Results include Dice.com from February 2 and MicroHouse from March 19.
Looking at the traffic metrics: page views rose to 73.3 million, up 367 percent from last year. Including Dice.com, page views for the quarter totaled about 92 million. A page view is one electronic page of information displayed in response to a user request. Unique visitors, excluding Dice.com, rose to 13.3 million, a gain of 58 percent from the fourth quarter. Unique visitors are surfers that are counted only once per time frame, regardless of the amount of information they seek or the frequency of their visits.
EarthWeb pared losses in its fourth quarter, losing 53 cents a share, 5 cents less than the loss Wall Street expected.
Here's a look at some of the other Internet earnings after the bell Thursday:
Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL)
The online car buying resource posted a first quarter loss of $6.1 million, or 68 cents a share, as revenue rose 73 percent to $8 million. First Call's survey of one analyst was expecting a loss of 78 cents a share.
In the year-ago period, Autobytel.com lost 83 cents a share on sales of $4.6 million.
For March, Autobytel.com garnered 19.2 million page views, up 21 percent from December. Unique visitors for last month gained 48 percent from December to million visitors.
"We believe ABTL continues to show strength in its business as it has been able to grow its dealer network, while increasing its average per dealer fees, and drive higher than expected purchase requests," said James Preissler, analyst at PaineWebber who reiterated his "buy" rating.
Preissler held his second quarter estimate at a loss of 43 cents a share and we are adjusting our 1999 EPS estimate to a loss of $1.79 a share.
"We believe as the environment for Internet company valuations improve Autobytel could trade closer to the high range of 200x (earnings), or at a price target of $130," said Preissler who has a 12-month price target at $65 a share.
Healtheon (Nasdaq: HLTH)
The e-commerce company addressing the health care services market reported first quarter revenue of $17.6 million, resulting in a net loss of 30 cents share for the quarter. First Call was looking for a loss of 28 cents a share.
Healtheon lost $1.19 a share in the year-earlier period on revenue of $9.8 million.
Healtheon nearly doubled the number of transactions it processed to 10.7 million transactions in March from 5.6 million in December. The company also expanded its reach among health care providers and medical offices to 168,000 physicians in March from 94,000 physicians in December.
"We experienced rapid growth that was fueled by an increase in our e-commerce services for clinical data, expansion of our customer opportunities through a joint marketing and service relationship with IBM, an expanded agreement with Beech Street Corp., significant additions to our executive management team and our Board of Directors, and a successful IPO," said chief Mike Long in a statement.
MarketWatch (Nasdaq: MKTW)
The online financial news and information provider lost $6.1 million, or 52 cents a share, for its first quarter, a narrower loss than the 52 cents First Call's survey of 4 analysts had expected. Revenue for the quarter rose 168 percent from last year to $3.1 million.
The company's losses were largely from charges for network advertising and promotion provided by CBS, said the company in a statement. Non-cash charges for CBS advertising comprised $3.2 million, or 27 cents a share, in the first quarter from 17 cents last year.
"It is our intention to continue to make investments in marketing, branding, editorial content, and traditional media activities to help increase our presence," said CEO Larry Kramer in a prepared release. "The market for Internet delivered financial news and services becomes more competitive by the day and these expenditures are intended to help us remain competitive. We hope that results of these investments will be increasingly visible as 1999 progresses."
MarketWatch.com lost $1.8 million, or 20 cents a share, in the same period last year.
On Thursday, MarketWatch bought Big Charts for $166 million in cash and stock.
EarthWeb
Autobytel.com
Healtheon
CBS MarketWatch
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZDII links:
EarthWeb skyrockets in first day trading
Autobytel more than doubles in debut
Healtheon, Prodigy and VeritcalNet open with staggering gains
Marketwatch.com gains 474 percent on first day
Special Report: IPO market just heating up
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
