McAfee.com Traffic, Earnings Up

Internet security firm, McAfee.com (Nasdaq: MCAF) Monday said more people clicked through its site for the first time between last October and December. That may have also contributed to an increase in earnings.

Sunnyvale-based McAfee.com reports more than 53 million unique visitors visited the site in the fourth quarter, an average of nearly 580,000 a day. Statistically, that boils down to a 65% increase from the third quarter of 2000 and a 165% increase over the same period in 1999.

McAfee.com says the jump in new visitors could be related to a number of high-profile virus outbreaks and hacker attacks last year as well as the launch of its .NET initiative, a venture for the small- and medium-sized business market, which has already signed up more than 1,000 companies.

“We credit this success to our ongoing commitment to provide the public with first-rate solutions to secure their digital assets,” says McAfee.com CEO Srivats Sampath. “This is a tremendous endorsement from Internet users who want to protect their PCs.”

McAfee, a majority-owned subsidiary of Network Associates (Nasdaq: NETA) also reported its fourth quarter earnings at $12.1 million, up $3.7 million from the same period last year.

Are the two statistics related? Sampath seems to think so based on the company’s growing core subscription business.

“This has been another year of strong growth for McAfee.com, despite the transition away from sponsorship and advertising as a major revenue source,” says Sampath.

Sampath will be among several panelists at an upcoming Breakfast Forum this Thursday in San Francisco, sponsored by SiliconValley.internet.com.