Roundup: Online revenue boosts Cheap Tickets past 2Q forecasts
A 131 percent sequential increase in online sales carried Cheap Tickets Inc. (Nasdaq: CTIX) on a second quarter flight almost twice as high as analysts expected.
In results released after market close Monday, the airline ticket seller posted net income of $3.2 million, or 15 cents a share. First Call's survey of two analysts predicted earnings of 8 cents a share for the quarter ended June 30.
Internet gross bookings of $38.5 million resulted in online revenue of $27.1 million, a 113 percent gain from the first quarter. That was 28 percent of Cheap Tickets' overall second quarter revenue of $102.6 million, which itself represented a 131 percent gain from $48.2 million in the year ago period, when Cheap Tickets got just 6 percent of revenue online.
Phone sales and other revenue accounted for $75.5 million of net revenues in the second quarter this year.
Historically, the second quarter is the one for Cheap Tickets, said Michael J. Hartley, chairman and CEO. "Demand for leisure travel was very robust with several carriers flying at record load factors," he said. "We think it is significant that we set new sales records despite these high load levels."
Cheap Tickets added more than 450,000 registered users, bringing the total to more than $1.2 million. Increased advertising helped boost that figure, Hartley said.
The company's traditional telephone business grew 46 percent year-over-year. Hartley credited the opening of a new call center in March of last year with a "significant" portion of the increase.
Overall gross margin stayed even at 19.1 percent. More than 72 percent of gross bookings came from non-published fares, compared to 65 percent in the year earlier period.
"During the second half of this year we have scheduled an aggressive television and radio advertising campaign in order to raise brand awareness among our target markets." Hartley said. "The campaign will target Internet and call center users in several major markets throughout the US. The television commercials will run on a variety of national cable networks."
Other companies reporting quarterly results:
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