SAN FRANCISCO, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- MarketWatch.com, Inc.
(Nasdaq: MKTW) today reported revenues of $4.8 million for the 2nd quarter of
1999, a 217% increase over the comparable period of the previous year and a
55% increase over revenues of $3.1 million reported in the quarter ended March
31, 1999. Net losses were $12.8 million, or $1.02 per share, for the 2nd
quarter. This compares to net losses of $2.8 million, or $0.31 per share, for
the comparable period in the previous year and $6.1 million, or $0.52 per
share, for the quarter ended March 31, 1999. A significant portion of the
reported losses (approximately $8 million or $0.64 per share) were
attributable to non-cash charges for network advertising and promotion
provided by CBS to the Company and amortization of goodwill and other
intangible assets resulting from the acquisition of BigCharts, Inc., which
closed on June 9.
"Our revenues, exclusive of BigCharts, were $4.4 million, an increase of
$1.3 million over our last quarter," said Larry Kramer, President and CEO of
the company. "This represents good growth in all of our business lines, and
we believe that it reflects the strength of our core assets. In addition, we
are also very pleased with the important new revenue opportunities that
BigCharts brings to our company."
The company also reported significant increases in traffic and users of
its cbs.marketwatch.com web site during the quarter. Exclusive of BigCharts,
MarketWatch.com's websites served 287 million page views in the second
quarter, an increase of 175 million, or 156% from the comparable quarter in
the prior year and an increase of 52 million, or 22% from the first quarter of
1999. In addition, BigCharts.com served 23 million more pages during the 20
days it was part of MarketWatch.com at the end of the quarter.
The monthly average number of unique visitors to the company's web sites
was 3.8 million in the second quarter of 1999, an increase of 217% and 15%
from monthly averages of 1.2 million a year ago and 3.3 million in the first
quarter of 1999, respectively. These reach numbers are calculated by
DoubleClick, which serves ads on the company's sites via its DART service.
These do not include BigCharts users, who will begin to be counted in July.
"We are particularly happy with our growth in pages and users over the
past quarter," said Kramer. "During the first quarter we experienced
substantial increases in both due in part to our highly publicized IPO. Our
growth during the past quarter demonstrates our continued acceptance as an
important provider of financial information.
"Here are some highlights of the second quarter:
* Closed the acquisition of BigCharts on June 9, 1999, for approximately
$157.5 million in stock and cash. This transaction very significantly
broadens our product offerings, and helps to diversify our revenue
opportunities.
* A content licensing deal with Fidelity announced earlier this month is
the first example of the company delivering both MarketWatch.com
editorial content and BigCharts data-driven tools together to a
licensing partner. We believe that MarketWatch is now positioned as a
premier turn-key provider of financial information on the Internet.
* Excite@Home signed CBS.MarketWatch.com on as the default Business News
Source on the Excite News Channel and added MarketWatch.com content
throughout the Excite service, including the customizable My Excite
start page.
* E*Trade Group announced a global marketing agreement with BigCharts to
be to be the primary provider of online, interactive financial charting
and investment research to E*TRADE-branded investment services web sites
worldwide.
* Marshall Loeb, former Managing Editor of Fortune and Money Magazines and
Business & Economy Editor of Time, joined MarketWatch.com as a
columnist, further strengthening the Personal Finance offerings that
have been a focus of growth within the company. In addition, Personal
Finance page views doubled during the quarter.
* MarketWatch.com opened its Tokyo Bureau during the quarter, bringing the
company to 24-hour-a-day worldwide coverage with the addition of former
Dow Jones Television and CBNC journalist Bill Clifford as bureau chief.
* The MarketWatch.com Radio Network, launched in March with Westwood One
(WON: NYSE), has signed up new affiliates in Detroit, Dallas, Chicago,
Minneapolis and San Francisco, joining New York's 1010 WINS and stations
in 30 other cities.
* E-commerce deals with Carclub.com (Car Center), Multex (Research) and
ConsumerInfo.com (Credit Reports) were launched.
* The MarketWatch.com website began offering streaming audio and
audio/video content including interviews with business newsmakers. Last
week's video interview with Morgan Stanley Analyst Mary Meeker was
downloaded more than 3,000 times over two days.
* Subsequent to the end of the second quarter, for the first time in the
site's history, the MarketWatch.com site has regularly been serving more
than five million pages on trading days.
"We are particularly pleased with our financial performance in the second
quarter," Kramer added. "We have continued to make important investments in
technology and infrastructure while managing our margins. These investments
have already resulted in improved site uptime and speed. Building a more
flexible site architecture will enable us to more rapidly broaden our product
offerings and respond to the needs of our audience, advertisers, and licensing
partners."
The Company's CBS.MarketWatch.com site is a leading Web-based source for
comprehensive, real-time business news, financial programming and analytic
tools.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks
and uncertainties. MarketWatch.com, Inc.'s actual results could differ
materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. These
forward looking statements include statements relating to (1) the traffic
levels of MarketWatch.com, (2) its revenue sources, particularly the future
contribution to MarketWatch.com's revenues from BigCharts, (3)
MarketWatch.com's ability to introduce new services and (4) the future
functioning of its web site. Factors that might cause or contribute to such
differences include, among others, the continued need to experience increases
in the number of companies advertising on the cbs.marketwatch.com Web site as
well as on the Web generally; risks associated with the Company's
relationships with CBS (NYSE: CBS) and DBC (Nasdaq: DBCC); the intensely
competitive environment for Web advertising sales and for Web-user traffic,
particularly in with respect to financial news-related Web sites; the
Company's ability to enter into distribution and other strategic relationships
with high traffic Web access points; reductions in market prices for Web
advertising as a result of competition, changing requirements of advertisers
or otherwise; the Company's ability to increase traffic and revenues from its
marketing relationships; the Company's ability to manage its growth; the
Company's ability to develop, as well as consumer acceptance of, the Company's
new services; ; the Company's ability to successfully integrate the business
and operations of BigCharts; the Company's ability to continue to license
BigCharts services, an area in which the Company has no prior experience; the
need to enter into a relatively high volume of licensing transactions for
BigCharts services, particularly in light of the relatively low license fees
for these services; customer renewal rates for BigCharts services,
particularly because these services are licensed for relatively short terms;
market demand for BigCharts services, which could be adversely affected by
competition or other factors; and the ability to maintain the computer
infrastructure used for the Company's web sites and to deliver its services
free from outages due to events under the provider's control or other outside
events.
More information about potential factors which could affect the Company's
business and financial results is included in the Company's Annual Report on
Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 1998, as amended, as well as its
other reports it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including
(without limitation) the captions "Management's Discussion and Analysis of
Financial Condition and Results of Operations," "Strategic Relationships,"
"Competition," "Control by CBS and DBC" and "Factors That May Affect Our
Operating Results," which is on file with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (http://www.sec.gov). The accompanying statements of operations and
balance sheets are an integral part of this announcement. All forward-looking
statements are based on information available to the Company on the date
hereof. MarketWatch.com, Inc. assumes no obligation to publicly release the
result of any revisions of these forward-looking statements.
MarketWatch.com, Inc. will hold a press and industry analyst conference
call today at 11AM EDT. Management of the company will be available for
comment. Investors will have the opportunity to listen to the call on the
Internet at:
http://www.broadcast.com/business/corporate/earningscalls/cbsmarketwatch/99q2/
For those that cannot listen to the live broadcast, replays will be available
shortly after the call at the same Web addresses.
SOURCE MarketWatch.com, Inc.
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Related links:
http://cbs.marketwatch.com
CONTACT:
J. Peter Bardwick, Chief Financial Officer of
MarketWatch.com, Inc., 415-733-0500
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