One of the few survivors from the dotcom Gold Rush, Barry Diller’s USA Interactive, took-on America's bear economy during the year’s first quarterand won in two straight falls .
Despite SARS, the war on Iraq and terrorist fears, the travel and entertainment e-tailer reported a 38% revenue hike in a quarter that saw flights and tourism generally bogged down in a crisis of consumer and business confidence.
The group’s main online businesses, travel website Expedia, room reservation service Hotels.com and entertainment bookings service Ticketmaster, have propelled USAi to top of the heap among internet stocks over the past year. In addition, its dollar adrenalin was boosted by TV-based Home Shopping Network which generates around one third of group revenues.
Factoring out non-cash compensation, marketing costs and amortisation of goodwill, USAi reported a net profit for the quarter to March 30 of $0.16 per share compared year-on-year with a net profit of $0.06. This bettered analysts’ consensus expectation of an adjusted profit of $0.14.
Data sourced from: Financial Times; additional content by WARC staff
