Search & Media performed well for IAC, but the continued troubles in the housing market reduced the impact of Ask’s gains.
Third quarter results for IAC showed some nice results: $1.5 billion in revenue for the period, and adjusted earnings per share of 37 cents. Operating income did drop compared to the same year over year period, to $104 million.
IAC chairman and CEO Barry Diller liked everything he saw, except for the home lending side of his empire.
“With the exception of Lending Tree, this was a satisfactory quarter for IAC. Trends at our businesses are good, and particularly so at HSN, where I believe that Mindy Grossman and her team have now become acclimated and are beginning to demonstrate the great retailing smarts that we knew they were capable of,” Diller said in a statement.
IAC places Ask in its Media & Advertising group. That group brought in third quarter revenue of $189.8 million, and operating income of $15.4 million. In 2006, the same quarter saw $135.5 million in revenue and a loss of $2.1 million.
“Within IAC Search & Media, network revenue growth outpaced that of proprietary revenue, primarily due to a wider adoption of syndicated search and sponsored listings products,” said IAC. “Ask.com revenue grew, due to an increase in revenue per query and queries.”
Analytics firm Compete cited Ask’s search engine market share among US visitors at 3.6 percent for September 2007. That represented a half-percent increase from August.
