Is There Light at the End of Groupon's Tunnel?
Although Groupon's market position was already dreadful amongst rivals, which includes Google (GOOG) , Yahoo (YHOO) and Amazon(AMZN) , on the heels of the company's Q3 earnings results, investors have come to terms with their worst fear -- things are only going to get much worse.
Q3 Was Anything But Good
For a company mired in controversy for most of this year, including investigations by the SEC regarding its accounting and disclosures, Groupon's Q3 report failed to inspire any confidence that its business is sustainable.
For the period ending Sept. 30, Groupon reported a net loss of $3 million -- essentially breaking even on a per share basis. While this was a significant improvement from the $54 million loss of a year ago, it also represented a sequential decline. Even though adjusted earnings of 3 cents per share matched analysts' estimates, it was not enough to please investors.
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Likewise, although Groupon grew revenue by 32% to $569 million, it fell 4% short of analysts' estimates of $591. Management said that continued weakness in Europe offset what has been a strong performance in North America. Consequently, gross billings were abysmal -- growing by only 5% year-over-year but also declining by 5% sequentially. This is the metric that indicates the total amount spent by consumers on Groupon's deals.
On the bright side, the company is expecting a slight uptick in performance for the fourth quarter -- forecasting revenue in the range of $625 to $675 million. Though the midpoint of the company's guidance was high enough to eclipse analysts' estimates of $634.9 million, this was not enough to prevent the stock from selling off nearly 16% immediately following the announcement -- falling as low as $3.30. Since then, the bleeding has not stopped as the shares have fallen another 20% to Tuesday's close of $2.63.