IAC (NSDQ: IACI) Q2 net income more than tripled from a year ago to $42.4 million, as healthy growth across the board – and especially from search – pushed revenue up by nearly a quarter to $485.4 million.
A 28 percent jump in search revenue came from an Ask.com marketing drive and “improved monetization”, plus from new sites and new partners added by the Mindspark unit.
Q2 losses IAC records from affiliates through the equity method more than doubled to $8.7 million from a year ago, after the group began accounting for Newsweek Daily Beast in this way, following the sale of 50 percent to Sidney Harman.
Despite Beast’s absence, losses in the Media & Other category Beast had occupied grew slightly to $3.2 million, because of lower revenue at IAC’s Electus job site and Pronto shopping network, plus the cost of starting up its Hatch Labs mobile R&D house.
Match.com total paid subscribers are up 12 percent since last year (core sites up 17 perent, developing sites down seven percent). Revenue is up by a fifth after it acquired OkCupid in January. IAC has $911.9 million cash in the bank is awaiting acceptances for the acquisition of French dating firm Meetic, for which it has now set $360.6 million in escrow, following its bid of €15 per share earlier this month.
Match.com already took ownership of 27 percent of Meetic in 2009, when it gave over its Match.com Europe business to the Paris-based site.