Zillow Group Inc. said Tuesday that its revenue more than
doubled in the second quarter, boosted by a 74% increase in unique
users and its acquisition of rival real-estate website Trulia.
Shares of Zillow rose 7.8% to $80.01 a share in after-hours
trading.
For the quarter ended June 30, the company posted a loss of
$38.7 million, or 66 cents a share, wider than its year-ago loss of
$10.5 million, or 26 cents a share.
Loss excluding items related to acquisition-related costs and
others was 1 cent a share, up from a loss of 5 cents a share a year
earlier.
Zillow's revenue rose to $171.3 million from $78.7 million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected a loss of 26
cents a share on revenue of $168.69 million.
Average monthly unique users in the second quarter increased 74%
to 140.6 million from 81.1 million. Zillow measures unique users
with Google Analytics and Trulia measures unique users with
Omniture analytical tools.
Earlier this year, Zillow closed a $2.5 billion stock-swap deal
for onetime competitor Trulia in February. While the companies'
similarity was expected to lead to a relatively smooth merger, the
integration has required adjustments. One such change was reducing
Trulia's reliance on banner advertisements, a move intended to
improve the site and attract more users in the long term, but one
that hurt revenue in the short term.
Zillow said Tuesday that it is on track to complete its
integration of Trulia by the third quarter. News Corp., the parent
company of The Wall Street Journal, owns Zillow competitor Move
Inc.
On a pro forma basis, assuming the inclusion of Trulia results
for both periods, the company had per-share loss of 46 cents a
share in the latest quarter, narrower than its loss of 52 cents a
year earlier. Revenue on that same basis increased to $171.3
million from $142.8 million.
Separately on Monday, the company promoted its chief operating
officer, Kathleen Philips, to chief financial officer. Ms. Philips
replaces Chad M. Cohen, who was leaving "to pursue other business
interests," Zillow said in a previous release. His resignation was
expected to be effective Aug. 7.
Write to Cassandra Jaramillo at cassandra.jaramillo@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires