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News & Updates - Thursday, April 19, 2007

Experian Buys Web Analytics' HitWise For $240M

There were rumors last year that HitWise would do an IPO that might value it at around $300M. But today the company was bought by Experian for $240M. Founded in 1997, based in NYC but global thanks to an Ausi CEO, Hitwise sells Internet analytics. Hitwise collects and aggregates information from ISPs on how 25M consumers use and search the Internet in the US, UK, Australia and other countries in Asia Pacific.

Hitwise claims over 1,200 clients including HSBC, AXA, Google, eBay, CBS News, ask.com, IKEA, MTV and Qantas. The top ten clients account for 5% of sales. 43% of sales come from the US, 36% in the UK and 21% from Australia and Asia Pacific.

In the year to March 2007, Hitwise is expected to generate sales of approximately $40M (a year-on-year increase of about 50%) and a small profit. Experian says it expects Hitwise to grow sales by more than 40% in the year to March 2008 and generate EBIT of $12-15M.

Experian has moved aggressively online over the past few years. Some of its acquisitions include PriceGrabber and LowerMyBills.com.

View - Hitwise site