Groupon Posts a Bigger-Than-Expected Loss in Q4 2012, Darkens Forecast for Q1 2013
The sad times continue for Groupon, despite the recent optimism. The daily-deals company has announced its fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2012 results, which include fourth-quarter revenue of $638.8 million, up 30 percent year-over-year. However, Groupon reported a net loss of $81.1 million, or 12 cents per share. This was worse than the expected loss of 2 cents per share.
As if that wasn’t bad news enough, Groupon says it expects its revenue in the first quarter of 2013 to be between $560 million and $610 million. The high end of that forecast falls short of analysts’ expectations of $650 million in first-quarter revenue.
Groupon’s international business continues to struggle. In the fourth quarter, its international segment took in $263.0 in revenue, down 16 percent from the same period in 2011.
The company’s revenue for its North America segment was $375.4 million, up 109 percent year-over-year.
Groupon notes that Groupon Goods saw a successful holiday season in 2012 and has an annual run rate of $2.0 billion in global billings. It also shares that in January, nearly 40 percent of North American transactions were completed on mobile devices, up 44 percent year-over-year.
After surging 7.8 percent on Wednesday, GRPN was down about 25 percent in after-hours trading.
