Rediff Losses Widen Even As It Invests In ‘Improving Customer Experience’

This article was originally posted in contentSutra

Nasdaq-listed Rediff.com (NSDQ: REDF) India Ltd today said net loss for the quarter ended 30 September widened by 84% to $2.61 million, from $0.41 million during the corresponding quarter last fiscal. 

Total revenues dropped 43% year-on-year to $4.19 million. Revenues from India Online dropped 45% y-o-y to $3.08 million.

	2Q 2009	2Q 2008
Earnings Per ADS	-$0.089	-$0.014
Net Income	-$2.61 million	-$0.42 million
Revenue	$4.19 million	$7.32 million

“As we had said in our last earnings call, we have taken a number of steps to improve the customer experience on our site, including the removal of ads from our home page, reduction of intrusive and non-contextual ads on other pages, as a result of which we expected a reduction in our revenue in the upcoming quarters. Accordingly, we saw a decline in revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2009 by 16% over the previous quarter and by 43% over the corresponding quarter in the previous year in US Dollar terms. However, we believe that these user–experience-improvement initiatives have started to show results and have helped us restore the growth in our user base, as measured by ComScore (NSDQ: SCOR) Media Metrix,” Rediff chairman and CEO Ajit Balakrishnan said in a statement.

Balakrishnan said the company will continue this strategy and invest in product development and brand building at the rate of $1-1.5 million in the next few quarters.