Revenue, income improves for Acxiom in its fiscal second quarter

Acxiom Corp. on Wednesday reported a better second quarter compared to a year ago as the Little Rock data marketing firm reported improved sales from its new software business.

For the period end Sept. 30, the Little Rock data marketer reported net income of $10.723 million, or 14 cents per share, compared to a loss of $1.544 million in the same period of 2014.

Total revenue grew by 1.5% to $207.345 million in the second quarter, compared to $204.248 million in the same period a year ago.

Wall Street had expected Acxiom to report second quarter earnings of 10 cents per share on revenues of $205.1 million, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters.

“Connectivity had another impressive quarter highlighted by strong revenue growth, new customer additions and the launch of LiveRamp Customer Link,” Acxiom CEO Scott Howe said in the earnings report. “At the same time, our Marketing Services and Audience Solutions businesses had a number of key wins during the quarter, including several large renewals.”

Following are other key points in the Acxiom report.

• LiveRamp added 40 new customers during the quarter and added over 30 new partner integrations. Marketers can now onboard and distribute their data to a growing network of more than 250 marketing platforms and data providers.

• The Connectivity segment reported $82 million of gross media spend in the second quarter, up 122% year-over-year. On a trailing 12-month basis, Connectivity had $268 million of gross media spend, up 167% over the comparable period.

• LiveRamp announced the launch of Customer Link, a new software-as-a-service product that connects campaign and sales data across channels and devices, solving the linking challenge that prevents marketers from creating a unified view of customer activity. Customer Link extends LiveRamp’s suite of open connectivity services.

• Acxiom also said it repurchased nearly 607,000 shares for $12 million during the quarter. Since inception of the stock buyback program in August 2011, Acxiom has repurchased 14.3 million shares for $230 million.

Acxiom reiterated its yearly profit forecast of 45 cents to 50 cents per share. It expects annual revenue to be in the range of $815 to $840 million.

At the close of business Wednesday, Acxiom’s shares (NASDAQ: ACXM) fell by 21 cents to $22.05. The company’s stock has traded in the range of $15.78 and $22.94 during the past 52 weeks.