YELP Yelp Inc

Yelp Inc. on Thursday raised its revenue projection for the year following better-than-expected results in the first quarter, even as higher spending drove a fifth consecutive quarterly loss for the online-review purveyor.

The San Francisco company now expects $690 million to $702 million in revenue for the year, compared with its earlier view of $685 million to $700 million.

For the current quarter, it projects $167 million to $171 million in revenue, compared with analysts' projected $167.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

Shares, down 45% over the past 12 months, rose 9% to $23.34 in after-hours trading.

Founded in 2004, Yelp went public in 2012 and makes money by selling advertisements. Still, it has struggled to remain profitable.

The company, which last year called off plans to sell itself, has amassed millions of consumer reviews for businesses such as restaurants, dentists' offices and hair salons, along with government agencies, but its results have faltered. At the same time, tension with Google, which once tried to buy Yelp and is now part of Alphabet Inc., has intensified as Google pushes its own listings. Yelp relies on search engines like Google to attract users.

Over all, Yelp reported a loss of $15.5 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.3 million, or 2 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation and other items, Yelp reported a profit of 8 cents a share, down from 10 cents a year earlier.

Analysts had projected a loss of 16 cents a share.

Revenue rose 34% to $158.6 million, bolstered by a 34% increase in local advertising accounts and above the company's projections. Costs, meanwhile, rose 41% to $172.9 million.

Yelp reported about 69 million average monthly unique visitors on mobile, compared with 66 million in the previous quarter, and 77 million on desktop, compared with 75 million in the previous quarter.

About 21 million unique devices used its app in the latest period, up from about 20 million in the previous quarter, the company said.

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 05, 2016 17:25 ET (21:25 GMT)

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