Green Shoots for Greenfield in First Quarter

Internet specialist Greenfield Online has posted strong revenue growth to $27.5m for Q1 2007, up from $21.5m in same period last year. The group's comparison shopping business led the charge, but online survey revenue grew an impressive 14.3%.

Revenue for the three months ending 31 March for the Internet survey solutions sector rose to $20.7m, against $18.1m for Q1 2007. President and CEO Albert Angrisani says the firm's investments in sales, marketing and technology were beginning to pay off for the survey business. He adds that revenue in Greenfield's top 20 accounts stabilised year-on-year, and that the firm is now seeing growth in these accounts after a long period of decline.

For the firm's comparison shopping segment, total net revenue was $6.8m for the first quarter of 2007, as compared with $3.4m for the same period in the prior year – an increase of 98.4%.

Explaining growth in this segment, Angrisani comments: 'This quarter comparison shopping expanded into Sweden, with the technical launch of a new portal completed in March. In addition,
after successfully launching the fashion offer category last year in Germany, the comparison shopping team rolled it out into France, the UK, Italy, and Spain in the first quarter. Also, comparison shopping increased the number of merchants by 100 this quarter.'

According to Bob Bies, Executive Vice President and CFO, real-time sampling has become a very successful source of respondents for the firm in North America. He comments, ''We continue to expect that while comparison shopping will continue to grow at a faster pace than Internet survey solutions segments, with higher gross margins, these higher margins will be offset by higher software amortization costs and real time sampling expense.'

Total gross profit for the initial quarter was $20.3m, up from $16m in the prior year. Meanwhile operating income stood at $3m, balanced against $1.3m in Q1 2006. Net income for the first quarter of 2007 was $2m, against $0.8m a year previously. For the first quarter of 2007, Adjusted EBITDA was $6.8m compared with $5.2m (excluding restructuring charges) a year before.

Angrisani concluded: 'Going forward we hope to see additional profitable revenue growth in both businesses as a result of our 2007 sales and marketing investment strategy and our ability to sustain pricing targets in the global survey market.'

Serious problems at the company emerged in September 2005 when CEO Dean Wiltse departed amid falling revenue predictions (www.mrweb.com/drno/news4631.htm ). Angrisani, formerly of Harris Interactive, was appointed as a troubleshooter. On February 9th this year the company reported a return to profit in annual results for 2006 (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6430.htm ), with Angrisani describing the firm as in 'the last stages of solidifying its overall turnaround' – but today's results are the most promising yet.

The firm's home page is at www.greenfield.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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