Sohu Profit Jumps
Shares of
Sohu
(SOHU) - Get Report
rose more than 10% in late trading Monday after the China-based Internet portal reported better-than-expected profit and sales.
The company's net income rose to $8.9 million, or 23 cents a share, from $6.5 million, or 18 cents a share, during the year-earlier period. Revenue jumped 7.7% to $30.5 million on strong advertising sales. Analysts' forecasts called for EPS of 21 cents and sales of $29.2 million, according to Thomson First Call.
"We had a very good quarter," said Charles Zhang, Sohu's chairman and chief executive, in a statement. "Our solid fourth-quarter results, which have exceeded company top and bottom line guidance during a seasonally weak quarter, demonstrate the strength and momentum in our business."
U.S. investors are attracted to Chinese Internet companies because Web use is growing there at a much faster rate than the U.S. The Chinese market also has heightened interest from U.S. Internet giants such as
(GOOG) - Get Report
and
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
, whose earnings have recently disappointed investors.
Shares of Sohu recently rose $2 to $21.30 in after-hours trading.
Sohu guided to first-quarter earnings of $28 million to $30 million, in line with analysts' forecast of $29 million. The company sees stock-based compensation and tax expenses of between 5 cents and 6 cents. Excluding those costs, earnings per share are expected to be 14 cents to 16 cents. Analysts had forecast EPS of 19 cents.
Other Chinese-based tech companies, including
Baidu
(BIDU) - Get Report
,
NetEase
(NTES) - Get Report
and
Shanda
( SNDA) are due to report results in the coming weeks.
