J2, which owns IGN, Mashable, Speedtest and RetailMeNot, made $398.2 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2021, up from $332.4 million in revenue in the same quarter of 2020, the company reported in its earnings release May 10.
J2 said diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $2.18, an improvement from the previous year’s gain of $1.40 per share.
The company’s earnings beat analysts’ expectations, which anticipated earnings pershare of $1.65. J2 has topped Wall Street earnings expectations in four consecutive quarters.
The company’s digital media segment saw the most success. Revenue increased nearly 40% year over year, up to $226.8 million in the quarter from $162.6 million the year before.
J2 Chief Executive Vivek Shah said RetailMeNot’s active users skyrocketed 129% year over year. Its editorial media brands, such as Mashable, PCMag and IGN, saw 27% growth in revenue as its advertising market strengthened, Shah said.
“We believe we can leverage our significant audience reach to drive paid content,” Shah said.
He added that J2’s digital media segment acquired a “small but interesting” asset at the start of May called DailyOM, which sells online health and wellness courses.
Revenue for its cloud services sector remained steady year over year, bumping up around 1% to $171.4 million from $169.8 million the year before.
Excluding revenues from J2’s Voice assets in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom that were sold to its business-to-business backup operations, the company’s cloud services revenue grew around 6%, to $158.8 million in 2021 from $150.4 million in 2020.
That gain marked the segment’s “strongest growth quarters in recent memory,” Shah said.
Revenue for the company’s cloud fax business, Consensus, was up 7% for the quarter. In late April, Shah announced J2’s plans to spin off Consensus into a separate publicly traded company later this year.
“We operate our businesses in a highly decentralized fashion, which is an advantage as we look at separating Consensus’ business operations from J2,” Shah said. “A full project team has been established and is fully operational to ensure a smooth and efficient separation.”
