Fourth Quarter Brings Records for infoUSA

Super Bowl advertiser infoUSA, the new owner of Opinion Research Corporation, has reported record revenues of $125.1m in the fourth quarter of 2006 and $434.9m for the full year 2006 – the latter a 13.1% increase. The firm also plans new product releases and a reorganisation of its key divisions.

The fourth quarter figure was more than 26% up on revenue of $98.8m in Q4 2005. Fourth quarter operating income increased from $15.7m to $21.6m year on year, after little change overall in the first three quarters – the full year total was also up c.$6m, from $58.3m to $64.6m. Similarly, fourth quarter EBITDA of $29.2m, up from $23.0m a year previously, made the difference between full year EBITDA growing and declining – it finished up at 94.0m from $91.9m in 2005.

In the fourth quarter, the firm added 6,200 subscribers to Salesgenie.com(R), Credit.net(R), SalesLeadsUSA.info, and its subscription products bringing the total to 54,000 and annualized revenue to more than $98m. Vin Gupta, Founder, Chairman and CEO described 2006 as 'a great year for infoUSA'.

The company says it will reorganise its structure for both operational and reporting purposes for 2007, creating three segments: the Data Group, the Services Group, and the Research Group.

The Services Group, previously known as The Donnelley Group, includes Catalog Vision, the firm's DP and Direct Marketing division dedicated to Direct Mail Catalog Retailers and non-profit and charitable organizations; as well as List Brokerage and List Management divisions. The company says it will expand Catalog Vision's modeling and analytics group in 2007.

The Research Group, consisting of recently acquired ORC, will be divided into corporate MR division Opinion Research and government research division Macro International, as previously announced.

Also for 2007, infoUSA says a 'Customer Analyzer' feature will be added to its massive subscription database SalesGenie.com, allowing users to upload their customer files and profile them to target prospects. SalesGenie will be newly familiar to millions of Americans having been the subject of infoUSA's inaugural venture into Super Bowl advertising at the weekend. The firm aired three 30-second commercials including one during the game itself, an 'expensive proposition' justified by its belief that 'most' of its market of 20m potential users watch the Super Bowl.

The group's buoyant report also stresses its prominence in providing data for two topical technologies, points of interest information for in-car navigation, and business database information for the online yellow pages and local search industry including major players Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and infoSpace.

For the future, the group says it expects the ORC acquisition to be accretive to its earnings in fiscal 2007, and anticipates revenue in the range $620-630m with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the range $118m to $125m.

infoUSA is based in Omaha and is online at www.infoUSA.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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