Posts Tagged ‘Company Results’

Google announces strong profit rise day after its first UK acquisition

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Proof that online advertising spending has remained resilient throughout the wider economic downturn came today when Google announced its latest batch of financial results.

The search giant registered a year-on-year revenue rise of 23 per cent, with revenue of US$6.77billion for the three months to March 31 2010.

Profits rose by 37 per cent – and yet analysts remained stoically unimpressed, and Google shares fell by five per cent after the results were released.

Analysts’ unease seemed to have been caused by news that Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt would no longer take part in the quarterly conference calls announcing the company’s results – despite Google stressing that this had no wider meaning about Schmidt’s role in the company.

There was also some concern that, despite the strong performance, Google’s cost-per-click – the price advertisers pay when someone clicks on their ad – had fallen by four per cent over the final quarter of 2009. This meant that it had risen by seven per cent over the year as a whole, when many analysts had expected its AdWords programme to post an even larger year-on-year rise.

The California-based company still makes most of its revenue from outside the United States, with the proportion having stayed fairly constant over the last two quarters, at 53 per cent and 52 per cent respectively.

Google admitted that it would continue to make substantial investments. Leading up to the results, it had been active in the market, and indeed had made its first foray into the UK, buying visual search recognition app developer Plink.

Its PlinkArt software lets users analyse and identify well-known works of art and gives them the chance to buy poster versions. The developers claim the software was downloaded more than 50,000 times within six weeks of its launch. Plink founders, Mark Cummins and James Philbin, will work on Google’s own visual search project, Google Goggles.

Google had earned US$842million from the UK in the first quarter of 2010, or 13 per cent of its overall revenue – identical to the proportion earned in the same quarter the previous year.

Internationally, it said it had recruited 800 extra staff during the quarter, and its global head-count had reached 20,621 as of March 31.

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Posted in E-commerce, Financial, Google, Google AdWords, Internet, News, PPC, search | No Comments »

eBay boss pockets 58 per cent pay drop amid disquiet about site alienating sellers

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

eBay customers have vented their anger at the company’s Chief Executive, despite the company revealing that his and other top executives’ pay fell sharply in 2009.

As a result of the e-commerce company issuing smaller stock and option bonuses, John Donahoe’s total package, including salary, bonus, stock and option awards and other items, fell to $10.13million in 2009 from just over $24million the previous year, according to figures filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Donahoe’s salary rose more than six per cent to $934,615, due in part to an extra pay period included in 2009, and to an increase received when he became CEO on March 31, 2008, Reuters reported.

eBay is due to hold its annual shareholders meeting in San Jose, California, on April 29.

The company’s shares soared nearly 69 per cent during 2009 and have climbed another 16.7 per cent since the beginning of 2010.

But revelations about the top man’s pay provoked some angry comment when it was posted on the Reuters website.

One poster, ‘RicRoe’, said Donahoe had “failed buyers, sellers and eBay.

“His entire management team can be credited with alienating thousands of sellers as well as making it harder for buyers to find what they are looking for,” he added.

The comment accused eBay of switching its emphasis to selling new goods over second-hand, and this had backfired as “buyers would have flocked to eBay seeking bargains an slightly used goods in order to offset the impact of the recession on their wallets.

“There was plenty of room for both new and used goods on eBay, however, Mr Donahoe chose to eradicate the ‘flea market’ image.

“In so doing, he alienated a significant base of buyers and sellers, and destroyed eBay’s once broad market appeal.”

Another commenter, ‘horsemama’, put it more succinctly: “Donahoe doesn’t deserve fifty cents after what he’s done to all the small sellers on eBay. He’s been rude and condescending to eBay’s own customers.”

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Posted in Internet, Online, Other News, Shopping, eBay | No Comments »

Strong growth helps Virgin Media beat forecasts

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Virgin Media is promising to offer its customers the fastest commercially available broadband network in the UK by the end of 2010.

It announced plans to roll out a 100Mb broadband service across parts of the UK in February as it gave its financial results for the previous quarter which were ahead of expectations.

Its revenue for the last three months of 2009 was GBP980million, boosted by it signing up an additional 28,600 subscribers for its cable service.

The company’s success is based on the high proportion of its customers – over 60 per cent – who are signed up for at least three of its offerings from pay-TV, broadband, and fixed and mobile telephone services. More than one in 10 of the total takes all four.

Cable customers are also contributing more to the group’s revenue, with income from these up 5.8 per cent over the quarter. These yields are set to grow further, as the company implements a series of price rises across its products in the coming months.

But Virgin Media chief executive Neil Berkett told Reuters that while the group was succeeding in upselling to its existing customers, it was attracting new subscribers at the same time.

And he believed the roll-out of its superfast broadband would see this migration take a further step forward.

“The launch of Virgin Media’s 100Mb service will be a historic moment and will mean the UK will be comparable to other leading broadband nations,” he said.

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Posted in Broadband, Financial, Internet, News, Telecoms News | No Comments »

ASOS figures show clothing is enjoying online sales boom

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Another high street staple, the clothes store, is having its dominance whittled away by the growth in e-commerce, if the latest sales figures from online retailer ASOS are anything to go by.

The company announced a 47 per cent growth in sales for the first half of its 2009 operating year over the same period the previous year, and a recession-busting nine per cent rise in profits, to GBP4.4million.

The firm, which was originally known as As Seen On Screen, aims to offer young consumers the chance to wear the same designer looks as celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and Dannii Minogue, and its success has seen it become the largest online fashion and beauty retailer in the UK.

But growth here is now being substantially outstripped by that in international markets, where great progress in Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland and the United States resulted in a six-monthly growth of 161 per cent.

ASOS.com attracts over 6.3 million unique visitors a month and as at October 31 2009 had 2.8 million registered users and 1.2 million active customers (defined as having shopped in the last 6 months).

ASOS.com is the UK’s largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer and offers over 24,000 branded and own label product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty with over 1,400 new product lines being introduced each week.

In September the company had said first-half profits would be “marginally ahead” of the same time last year.

Since the period reviewed in its figures, sales had continued to grow, and were up 46 percent in the seven weeks to November 15, ASOS said.

“Our outlook for the second half remains cautiously optimistic,” Chief Executive Nick Robertson said.

“Stock and costs have been controlled well, so our performance in the second half should be significantly ahead year on year, providing sales continue to grow in line with expectations.”

The results came as high street fashion chain H&M announced a three per cent drop in sales at its stores in October.

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Posted in Online, Shopping | No Comments »

Phoenix helps Baidu profits soar 41 per cent

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Leading Chinese language Internet search provider Baidu posted profits of US$76.4million in the third quarter of 2009, 41.6 per cent up on the same period 12 months previously.

The figures also revealed that Baidu is achieving a considerable proportion of its success through its online marketing programme, known as Phoenix Nest, its equivalent of Google’s AdWords. This now accounts for more than one-fifth of the company’s total revenue, and is used by 70 per cent of Baidu customers.

Robin Li, Baidu’s Chairman and CEO, said of the results: “Once again we delivered a solid quarter.

“In addition we introduced a number of initiatives to support Baidu’s long-term growth.”

At the same time, he announced that Phoenix Nest would be rolled out across all of Baidu’s customers on December 1 2009, and that the company would be enhancing its customer support service in an effort to ensure that the transition went ahead smoothly.

Looking ahead, Baidu’s chief financial officer, Jennifer Li, said: “Prudent investments in our engineering and sales capabilities, branding efforts, and operational efficiency will continue to be key themes.”

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Posted in Financial | No Comments »