Nasdaq listed chinadotcom Corporation released its much delayed Year 2000 financial results last night revealing that it had incured significant write offs for the year. The company wrote off US$128 million in provisions for the depreciation of various assets. The majority of the write offs, US$109 million, occured in the fourth quarter of 2000.
The report also indicated that net losses for the fourth quarter were greater than those for the entire year. The net loss for the fourth quarter of 2000 was US$133.2 million while the net loss for the year totaled $59.8 million suggesting that last years dot-com downturn has hit china.com exceptionally hard.
Fourth quarter earnings for the company were marginally below analyst expectations.
Although fourth quarter revenue for the company was up more than three times over the same period a year previous to US$34.4 million. Analysts had pegged revenues for the company at around US$38 million.
chinadotcom said it expected revenues in the first quarter of this year to drop 25 percent from the fourth quarter of 2000.
The company cited the costs of integrating newly acquired companies and higher provisioning for bad debts as a major factor contributing to its net losses.
The full text of the report can be found online at: http://www.corporate-ir.net/media_files/nsd/china/docs/FYR2000PressRelease.doc
According to Internet audience measurement company iamasia, the entire network of chinadotcom sites (hongkong.com, china.com, and taiwan.com) attracted a total home audience of slightly over 3.1 million people during the month of January 2001 representing 20.4 percent of all home Internet users in the region. iamasia also noted that in percentage terms, the home audience reach of chinadotcom’s portal network is lowest in China (17.1 percent) and highest in Hong Kong at 42.2 percent. Taiwan home audience reach for January 2001 stood at 17.6 percent.