Sith Lord and Usenet Trolls Dept: Overstock Reports Strong Q2 Earnings

[mandy]

Key Q2 2008 metrics (comparison to Q2 2007):

    *
    * Total revenue: $188.8 million vs. $149.0 million (27% gain);
    * Gross margin: 18.1% (all-time high) vs. 17.7%;
    * Gross profit: $34.1 million vs. $26.3 million (30% gain);
    * Sales and marketing expense: $14.2 million vs. $8.0 million (79% increase);
    * Contribution (gross profit less marketing expense): $19.9 million vs. $18.3 million (8% gain);
    * G&A / Technology expense: $26.2 million vs. $25.7 million (a 2% increase);
    * Net loss: $6.5 million [$(0.28)/share] vs. $13.8 million [$(0.58)/share] (53% gain);
    * EBITDA: $1.1 million vs. $(4.2) million (a $5.3 million gain);
    * EBITDA (TTM): $9.6 million vs. ($54.9) million (a $64.5 million gain);
      Operating cash flows (TTM): $12.7 million vs. $9.4 million (a $3.3 million gain).

Dear Owner:

For the first time in its history your business has generated four consecutive quarters of positive EBITDA and TTM operating cash flows. We ended Q2 with $87 million in cash, having bought in $12 million of stock earlier in 2008. Our financial condition is sound despite a weak economy.

Strong growth in our fulfillment partner business drove revenues and gross profits this quarter. Total revenue grew 27%, the same pace we experienced in Q1, and gross margins reached an historical high of 18.1%. The fulfillment partner business accelerated to 41% year-over-year growth and 19.4% gross margins. We continue to increase product selection for our customers (now up to ~100k non-media SKUs vs. ~43k for the same period last year).

We added over 500,000 new customers this quarter, up 31% from last year:

full press release: http://investors.overstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=131091&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1176660&highlight=