Juno Online Beats Estimates, Cuts Handful of Jobs

Earnings Scorecard
Actual	Estimated*	Year-Ago
-$0.29	-$0.52	-$0.45

An executive of Internet service provider Juno Online(JWEB Quote) said Wednesday that the company lost 29 cents a share for the fourth quarter and set plans to cut about a dozen positions.

The two analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial forecast a loss of 52 cents a share, 23 cents wider than Juno's actual figure.

Juno reported a loss of $11.6 million, an improvement over the fourth quarter of 1999, when the company posted a loss of $15.7 million, or 45 cents a share. Revenue was $30.3 million in the fourth quarter, up 67% from $18.1 million in the year-ago period.

President and Chief Executive Charles Ardai attributed the increase in revenue to additional paid subscribers. Juno hit the 4 million subscriber mark earlier this month, and its billable subscriber base rose 92,000 to 842,000 in the fourth quarter.

Success on the subscription rolls backfired for some of Juno's marketing department. The company reduced considerably its subscriber acquisition campaign during 2000, thus trimming its external marketing spending. "Obviously, you don't need the same size marketing staff to do dramatically reduced marketing," Ardai added.

Juno fired about a dozen workers for performance-related reasons after annual evaluations. Many will be replaced. Of another dozen position changes, some were cut to cancel staff overlaps in Juno's India office. "Certain functions are out of our office in India. There are, accordingly, some positions where the functions were no longer needed in New York," Ardai said. "There aren't fewer heads. They're just in India and not in New York."