Why do an analysis of WebMD?
Quite simply, they are arguably the largest market player in online health. This is a young market and WebMD is the only company that we know which provides some visibility as to market trends, which can be extrapolated across the broader industry (with maybe the exception of the provider market). So what do we learn from this quarter’s results? Total Q3 revenue was $100.4M, up a strong 17%. Decent growth in an economy that continues to sputter. Health & wellness spending is continuing as companies seek new marketing channels for the advertisements and employers look to control healthcare spending. In the driver’s seat is online advertising/sponsorships (almost all from pharma) which saw 22% growth and represented $72M in revenue. Obviously, this is the goose laying the golden eggs and they see continued growth for this sector in the future, though they caution it will be modest. In responding to a question regarding size of the opportunity, WebMD stated that only 5% of the $5B spent a
