Groupon (GRPN 8.21%) remains a busted IPO, but it came through with another encouraging quarter. The daily-deals leader may never get back to the $20 price that it went public at two years ago, but it's doing everything possible to stay relevant as a leading source of leads for local merchants.
Revenue climbed 8% in its latest quarter, and that's with Groupon scaling back its operating in Europe. North American revenue soared 42%, and margins improved sequentially.
It was easy to steer clear of Groupon when bookings were falling, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the company that has transformed itself from merely a daily-deals provider into a well-rounded provider of merchant services.
Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.
- Just in case you weren't armed with enough anecdotal evidence that the housing industry is back, revenue at leading real estate website Zillow (ZG -1.10%) climbed 71% in its latest quarter. Zillow became the first company to take questions on Twitter during its earnings call, though most of those were from Wall Street analysts.
- Shares of Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN) tumbled 15% on Thursday after the company posted an unexpected drop in sales of its flagship prostate cancer treatment. A couple of analysts moved to downgrade Dendreon on the report.
- Heckmann (NESC) was downgraded by Global Hunter Securities after posting a wider quarterly loss than Wall Street was expecting. Revenue also came in a bit light.
- On the beat side, Tesla Motors (TSLA 4.96%) posted a quarterly profit that was four times larger than analysts were projecting. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also conceded that the company is exploring technology for self-driving cars.
