INTU Intuit Inc

By Anne Steele 

Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, reported a 10% rise in revenue in its latest quarter and issued an upbeat sales outlook for the current quarter after a slow start to the tax season.

Chief Executive Brad Smith said the company's small business strategy is driving momentum for QuickBooks Online. Subscribers there grew 49% during the quarter to 1.9 million.

He said the company is in the midst of another highly competitive tax season, which got off to a slow start.

"Experience tells us that every tax season is different, but there's one thing we know for certain about the tax business: everyone needs to file by the April 18 deadline," he said.

Intuit earlier this month warned results were lower than expected due to the tax season forming more slowly than usual. However, the company said it expects consumer tax revenue to shift to the third fiscal quarter and backed its full-year guidance.

Intuit typically collects the bulk of its earnings during tax season and often posts losses in its off-tax-season quarters.

For the January quarter, Intuit earned $13 million, or 5 cents a share, down from $24 million, or 9 cents a share, a year ago.

Earnings excluding items were 26 cents while revenue ticked up to $1.02 billion from $923 million. The company had guided for revenue of $1.01 billion to $1.02 billion and adjusted per-share earnings of 24 cents to 25 cents.

For the current quarter, the company expects revenue in the range of $2.5 billion to $2.55 billion with adjusted earnings between $3.85 and $3.90 a share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast revenue of $2.44 billion and adjusted per-share profit of $3.89.

Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 23, 2017 17:02 ET (22:02 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.