Nov 7th 2013, 21:04, by Ingrid Lunden
Fresh from celebrating its fifth anniversary last week, Groupon today reported its Q3 earnings: it's a mixed picture but shows that Groupon continues to make good on its commitment to take its business beyond the daily deals that are its bread and butter and into a wider marketplace for location-based and mobile commerce. Groupon reported revenues of $595.1 million with EPS of $0.02, missing on sales but beating on EPS estimates, and it announced an acquisition: Korea's Ticket Monster, for $260 million, to build out its mobile commerce operations in Asia through event ticketing services.
“We're also excited to announce today that we've signed an agreement to acquire Ticket Monster, one of the leading ecommerce companies in Korea,” said CEO Eric Lefkofsky in a statement. “Ticket Monster has been successful building a mobile commerce business in one of the largest markets in the world. It will serve as the cornerstone of our Asian business, bringing scale and e-commerce expertise to that region.”
Announcing this acquisition seems to set a precedent of sorts for Groupon for laying on significant news during earnings days. One quarterly report for Q1 this year saw Andrew Mason get kicked out as CEO; Q2 saw Lefkovsky finally get appointed as the permanent replacement for that job; and now an acquisition is getting announced in Q3.
In one regard, it seems that the acquisition news is there to offset the rest of the results, which are a mixed picture: analysts were expecting revenues of $615.7 million for the quarter with non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.01. However, they do fall within Groupon's own estimates for the quarter, which were between $585 million and $635 million. A year ago the company reported revenues of $568.6 million, with an EPS of $0.
Groupon marked last week's five-year birthday with a redesign of its website and mobile apps, with the new look promoting the idea that while daily deals remain a mainstay of the company's business, other products and features are now getting equal footing. These include premium restaurant dining offers via Groupon Reserve (launched in July) through to travel and its Groupon Goods marketplace. The company is also making a stronger effort to encourage more personalised deals, encouraing users to fill out profiles of themselves with their street addresses to make offers as localized as possible.
The focus on making an acquisition in Asia is also significant in that it shows that Groupon is trying to invest to build out business in that region. The company today noted that while North America and EMEA grew 20% and 12% in gross billings, the rest of the world (including Asia) declined by 13%. In total, gross billings were $1.34 billion, up 10% over a year ago.
Here's how Groupon's earnings have progressed across the last few quarters. If you don't see Q3, refresh the page and they should populate soon.
More to come. Refresh for updates.
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