Commerce One, i2 deliver 2Q upside surprise

Larry Dignan

Jan. 2, 2002 4:43 p.m. PT

2 min read

Business-to-business e-commerce players, i2 Technologies and Commerce One both checked in Tuesday with strong second quarter earnings that topped Wall Street consensus estimates.

Commerce One, which had to compete with Ariba (Nasdaq: ARBA) huge upside surprise last week, beat estimates on the top and bottom lines.

Commerce One reported a second quarter loss of $16.2 million, or $10 cents a share, excluding charges. Earnings tracking firm First Call Corp. projected a loss of 13 cents a share.

Sales were $62.7 million, up from $35 million in the prior quarter. Analysts were expecting sales in the $48 million range. Ariba gave Commerce One a tough act to follow by nearly doubling Wall Street's revenue projections.

Nevertheless, Commerce One was impressive. Commerce One has 123 marketplace partners representing 72 marketplaces, of which 34 are currently operational. Including all charges, Commerce One lost $43.1 million, or 28 cents a share.

I2 Technologies, which is a partnered with Ariba, reported second quarter operating earnings of $19.1 million, or 10 cents a share. First Call Corp. projected earnings of 8 cents a share.

Sales were $242.6 million, up 30 percent sequentially and up 84 percent compared to a year ago. Like Ariba last week, i2 credited its i2-IBM-Ariba alliance for boosting B2B sales.

"We're winning both individually and on the strength of our partners, including IBM and Ariba. i2 booked license revenue from 25 marketplace-related transactions in the quarter, making up more than a third of the customer contracts in the quarter and over two-thirds of license revenues in the quarter," said i2 President Greg Brady in a statement.

I2, which is involved with 90 private and public exchanges, has been beefing up to build B2B momentum. In the quarter, the company completed the acquisitions of SupplyBase, which provides Web sourcing of custom parts, and Aspect Development, a content management and supply software company.

Including non-cash charges for amortization of intangibles and other acquisition-related costs, the company reported a net loss of $280.8 million or a loss of $1.66 per share.