Zillow Surges on Earnings Beat, Acquisition
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of online real estate company Zillow (Z) jumped in late trades on Wednesday after the company soundly beat Wall Street's expectations for first-quarter earnings, thanks in part to strength in its Marketplace division.
Zillow, best known for its Zestimates of home prices, also agreed to acquire privately held RentJuice for $40 million in cash. The RentJuice acquisition is expected to allow Zillow to expand its rental marketplace offerings.
Seattle-based Zillow reported earnings of 6 cents per share on $22.8 million. Revenue growth soared 103% year-over-year, led by Marketplace revenue, which came in at $16.6 million.
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Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected Zillow to report earnings of 3 cents per share on $21.51 million in revenue. Independent analysts polled by Estimize were looking for 3 cents per share on $22.44 million in revenue.
CEO Spencer Rascoff continued to laud Zillow's mobile efforts, an area where the company is seeing significant growth. "Mobile usage and site traffic grew substantially during the first quarter, which led to record revenue and EBITDA levels exceeding our prior outlook, and our sixth consecutive quarter of triple-digit, year-over-year revenue growth," said Rascoff in the press release. Zillow, which runs Yahoo!'s (YHOO) Real Estate section, provided second-quarter revenue guidance better than what Wall Street was looking for. The company sees revenue of $25.5 million to $26.5 million in the June-ending quarter with adjusted EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] projected in a range of $3.25 million and $3.75 million. The current average analysts' view is for revenue of $24.84 million. Zillow plans to hold a conference call at 5 p.m. EST to discuss the results. Shares of Zillow closed the regular session up 4.03% at $36.10. The stock was sharply higher in extended-hours trading, rising 8% to $39.00 according to Nasdaq.com. Interested in more on Zillow? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for this stock. Check out our new tech blog, Tech Trends. Follow TheStreet Tech on your wireless devices. --Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York >To follow the writer on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/commodity_bull. >To submit a news tip, send an email to: tips@thestreet.comSelect the service that is right for you!
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