Homestore.com Gains as Q4 Beats Forecasts

Homestore.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: HOMS) wasup US$2.06 at $31.25 early Friday after the online real-estate companyreported better-than-expected results for the fourth quarter ended December31st.

Homestore.com said its network, which includes such sites as Realtor.com,HomeBuilder.com and HomeFair.com, saw a 102 percent increase in the averagenumber of unique visitors per month, with about 4.3 million in the fourthquarter. Each user spent an average of 19.7 minutes per month on thenetwork, up 11 percent from the year-earlier quarter.

Revenue for the quarter rose to $79 million from $28 million a year earlier,while income before extraordinary items totaled $3.3 million, or 4 cents pershare, compared with a loss of $16.2 million, or 23 cents, in theyear-earlier quarter. Analysts had expected pro forma income of 2 cents pershare in the latest quarter.

The company posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $34.2 million, or 41 centsper share, compared with a loss of $30 million, or 43 cents, a yearearlier.

Homestore.com said it expects first-quarter 2001 revenue of $81 million to $83 million, with pro forma earnings of 5 cents to 7 cents per share.

For fiscal2001 as a whole, the company said it expects revenue of $340 million to $350million, with pro forma earnings per share of 37 to 40 cents. Revenue for2002 is forecast at $465 million to $475 million, with pro forma earnings of 71 to 74 cents per share.

Subscriptions accounted for about 52 percent of total revenue in the latestquarter, due to an increase in the number of real-estate companies on theHomestore.com Web sites, the company said. Advertising revenue made up theremainder of revenue in the quarter, and was boosted by deals with companiesincluding Bank of America, Budget Group and Kodak.

An agreementwith AOL also boosted advertising revenue, Homestore.com said.

Westlake Village, California-based Homestore.com recently agreed to acquireMove.com, a real-estate portal owned by Cendant Corp.

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