LookSmart Beats Street, But Lowers 2004 Guidance
The struggling search listings provider said it will have a yearly loss worse than expected in 2004.
The struggling search listings provider said it will have a yearly loss worse than expected in 2004.
Paid search listings provider LookSmart exceeded Wall Street estimates for the fourth quarter, but the struggling company Thursday predicted a net loss for 2004 at the low end of analysts’ expectations.
LookSmart outdid the Wall Street consensus of $40.1 million in revenue and net income of two cents per share for the quarter, pulling in $44.1 million, with net income of one cent per share. However, the company predicted a loss for the year 2004 of $28 million on total sales of between $45 million and $50 million.
The company has been reeling since Microsoft’s MSN opted not to renew its contract with LookSmart in October. Plans for drastic layoffs were announced in December. LookSmart also launched a paid search product to complement its core paid inclusion business in hopes of building more business.
LookSmart’s challenge is to find a way to replace the approximately 70 percent of its income formerly derived from MSN.
“Our priorities are to continue to grow our paid listings, reduce our cost base and implement growth strategies based on profitable segments of the search market,” said Damian Smith, LookSmart’s interim CEO since the January resignation of its former chief executive, Jason Kellerman.
“Over this year LookSmart will introduce a number of new rapidly monetized search products in addition to our core listing business,” said Smith. He did not specify what the new products would be, though he said the company would “draw upon our history of successfully developing early stage search opportunities to deliver innovative solutions within underserved sectors of the market.”
“This is a company in transition,” said Safa Rashtchy, senior analyst with Piper Jaffray. “For a company to go through this kind of change is traumatic. They still have challenging growth ahead of them before they can get to profitability.”
More about:
Lucy helps organizations leverage knowledge for in... View Tech Talk
TVSquared is the global leader in cross-platform T... View Tech Talk
Grata is a B2B search engine for discovering small... View Tech Talk
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing ... Download Now
Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. ... Download Now
This report documents the findings of a Fireside c... Download Now
Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touc... Download Now
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...
View resourceData is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...
View resourceThis report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...
View resourceCustomers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...
View resourceMarketers today need to thoughtfully select visuals that align with their content, boost SEO performance and drive ROI Read More...
View articleHow the sunglasses giant created subconscious brand recall value with music festival-goers through the power of strategic partnerships and experientia...
View articleIn life, as much as on LinkedIn (or Facebook, Twitter, etc.) people and brands who blabber on about themselves become annoying and best avoided, soone...
View articleBuilding trust in your brand is hard enough. Now take a situation where your audience is so cynical of your product offering some of them even call fo...
View articleThere is room for better lead capturing as ABM evolves in a cookieless world Read More...
View articleTop-of-mind action points that will be valuable to challenger brand marketing for the rest of 2021 and 2022 Read More...
View articleOmnichannel marketing presents an opportunity to marketers but requires better use of data Read More...
View articleThe dark horse your business needs to outperform competition and win at search Read More...
View article