European online auctioneer
QXL.com plc announced
third quarter results Tuesday, showing an 84 per cent
rise in the number of users, but deeper losses on the
bottom line.
In the quarter to December 31, 1999, QXL.com posted
a loss of £10.7 million ($17.1 million) compared
to £8.1 million ($12.9 million) in the previous quarter.
The figures exclude £12.6 million ($20.16 million) for
acquisitions and £14.8 million ($23.68 million) for
National Health provision, bringing the loss to £38.1 million
($61 million) for the last quarter.
QXL’s share price surged by up to 16 per cent on news of
the results, falling back later in the day but still
showing a substantial gain.
Jim Rose, QXL’s chief executive officer, said that
the results illustrated that QXL was establishing a solid
platform from which to grow rapidly in the auction market.
“Beyond this strong growth, we have delivered on three key
strategic objectives,” said Rose.
“We have migrated the business to a non-inventory based
model, we implemented success fees on our consumer-to-consumer
auctions and we have strengthened our European presence with
nearly 50 per cent of our membership now outside of the U.K.”
QXL’s statistics for the last quarter also showed that the
number of items listed for auction increased 49 per cent to
1.3 million compared to 0.87 million for the quarter ended
September 30, 1999.
The site scored 30 million page impressions for January,
indicating that its 453,000 registered users each looked
at 66 pages. However, the gross auction value in the
last quarter was just £5.2 million ($8.3 million),
although this was an increase of 43 per cent over the
previous quarter.
QXL also announced Tuesday a deal to auction 20,000 tickets
for British Midland Airways Ltd.
