Shares of Irvine’s Local.com Corp., which hosts two Web sites that help users search for local businesses and products, jumped Wednesday after the company said it expects to be profitable by the end of the year.
The stock was up more than 13% in afterhours trading on a recent market value of about $65 million.
For 2008, Local.com said it expects revenue to be about $42 million and to return to profitability by the end of the year,which analysts weren’t anticipating.
It didn’t give a profit estimate.
For the current quarter, the company expects revenue of $8.1 million to $8.3 million, beating analysts’ expectations of $6 million in sales.
Local.com expects to lose $2.8 to $3 million for the first quarter, more than analysts’ expected $2.3 million loss.
The outlook comes on the heels of Local.com’s fourth-quarter results, which were in line with expectations.
The company counted $6 million in revenue, up 64% from a year earlier and beating analysts’ expected $5.8 million in sales.
Including $1.1 million in charges for stock compensation and depreciation on assets, Local.com had a loss of about $2.6 million, in line with expectations.
A year ago, the company lost about $3 million.
Formerly known as Interchange, Local.com counted a market value of about $200 million in 2005 after surging on the coattails of Google Inc.
The company shares since have fallen dramatically and it has focused its business on local search engines.
