Groupon Revenue Falls Short; Stock Skids

Daily deals site Groupon reported quarterly earnings that met estimates and revenue that ell short of nalysts' expectations on Thursday.

Groupon Lays Off 80 Sales Employees
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After the earnings announcement, the company's shares fell more than 14 percent in extended-hours trading. (Click here to get the latest quotes for Groupon.)

The company reported a net loss of $3 million and broke even on a per-share basis, compared to a net loss of $54.2 million and a loss of 18 cents per share in the year-earlier period, when Groupon was still a private company.

This loss included stock-based compensation and acquisition-related expenses of $25.1 million.

Excluding these charges, Groupon said its earnings were 3 cents a share.

Revenue increased 32 percent to $568.6 million from $430.2 million in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts had expected the company to report earnings excluding items of 3 cents a share and revenue of $590 million, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

For the current quarter, the company issued revenue projections of $625 million to $675 million. The midpoint of this range was higher than Wall Street estimates of $634 million, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Groupon released its report on the same day that it confirmed that it has laid off about 80 members of its sales team.

Investors will be paying close attention to Groupon's earnings since the company is the largest daily-deals site and is a gauge of how the industry is faring. Although Groupon's business model has spawned numerous copy cats, the company has fallen out of favor with many investors, sending its stock down roughly 80 percent since it went public at $20 per share last November.

Correction: An earlier version of this article reported that Groupon's earnings excluding items were break-even on a per-share basis and that the company missed analysts' estimates. Groupon said earnings excluding items were 3 cents per shares.