New media giant IAC
Analysts are used to aiming too high. IAC has come up short on the bottom-line guesstimates in each of the five past quarters. Revenue also came up short of expectations, falling by 7% to $351 million. Operating income before amortization spiked higher during the quarter.
One of the revenue sinkholes was its flagship Ask.com search engine. There were fewer search queries on the site following its October relaunch. IAC is also moving away from network revenue, scaling back on distributed search, sponsored listings and toolbars. That's not a negative, really, since it places the focus on growing higher-margin revenue at its proprietary content sites.
IAC is realizing that Ask.com will never be Google
This doesn't mean that Ask.com can't get back on a growth track. The site is making news today, inking a deal with Symantec
All of this may not make it any less frustrating for investors. When IAC split into five different companies -- sending off appendages like ticketing heavy Ticketmaster
IAC is definitely sleeker, but now shareholders need to see the company growing on all fronts.
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