In the week’s earnings webcast, CFO Neil Williams anticipated the analysts’ questions with, “I know it's been difficult to correlate the growth rate and QBO subscriptions to our online ecosystem revenue growth rate.” Notable was that with a 45-percent rise in the number of QuickBooks subscribers, the company also registered a 3-percent increase in desktop QuickBooks sales and expects that to continue in the current quarter. CEO Brad Smith said there is simply a contingent of desktop users that will not move. The quarter reflected tax season so there was a big chunk of revenue in that segment. Consumer tax revenue hit slightly less than $1.6 billion, an increase 7.2 percent from a year ago. The payroll and payment areas reflected the move online. QuickBooks Online Payroll produced $58 million in revenue, an increase of 20.8 percent from $48 million a year earlier, while there was $141 million in desktop payroll, up 6 percent from $133 million. Online payment revenue reached $32 million, a rise of 10.3 percent from 29 million, while desktop payment income dropped 6 percent to $141 million from $133 million.
INTUIT DOUBLES BOTTOM LINE Featured
Intuit turned in a good performance for the third quarter ended April 31 but seemed to spend a lot of time fielding questions from analysts asking why its growth in QuickBooks Online was not faster. However, the company doubled net income to slightly more than $1 billion in the most recently ended period from $501 million a year ago. And revenue rose to $2.3 billion, a 7.9 percent increase from $2.14 billion in last year’s corresponding period.
