In its debut quarterly report as a publicly traded company, mortgage software provider Ellie Mae posted a net loss of $800,000 for the first quarter of 2011.
Revenue was up 19% from the first quarter of 2010, to $10.6 million. The first-quarter loss was equivalent to 22 cents a share, better than the $1.6 million ($0.48 per share) loss a year earlier.
The first-quarter loss compares to net income of approximately $84,500 in fourth quarter of 2010 on revenue of $12.7 million.
There were 41,351 lender mortgage professionals who used Ellie Mae's Encompass origination system at least once during the quarter, up 18% from the first quarter of 2010 and up 4.2% from the fourth quarter of 2010.
Active broker mortgage professionals using the software stood at 11,014 at the end of 2010 — down 49% from the same period of 2009 — but Ellie Mae did not disclose the number of active brokers during the first quarter of 2011. The company only filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday. The full quarterly report is pending the registration of Ellie Mae's first quarter of 2011 form 10-Q.
In a call with analysts after the close of markets Wednesday, Sig Anderman, the president and chief executive of Ellie Mae, said the number of broker users dropped below 10,000 in first quarter, the result of declining number of mortgage brokers in the industry.
"The broker market is being pretty much decimated out there," Anderman said. "We're not focusing at all on brokers. Our entire focus is on lenders because that's where the future is in this business; it's pretty clear from virtually every perspective."
The company projects annual revenue to be $50 million to $52 million in 2011, which would be an increase of 16% to 20% from 2010. Ellie Mae also projected net income of $2.1 million to $3.1 million for all of 2011, which would be an increase of 170% to 299%.
Chief financial officer Ed Luce told analysts the projections are based on estimates of $1 trillion origination market in 2011 and growth in the number of users on Ellie Mae's loan origination system, but declined to specify Ellie Mae's target for annual new customers growth.
"We had planned to add 2,400 success-based pricing users in the first quarter, which are almost entirely lender users," Luce told analysts. "We beat that handily."
Lender use of its software-as-a-service origination system has increased to more than 11,100 mortgage professionals at the end of first quarter of 2011, from 2,738 at the end of first quarter of 2010 and 8,704 at the end of fourth quarter of 2010.
The Pleasanton, Calif., company said the average revenue per active lender user was $216, up 16% from $186 in first quarter of 2010, but down 19% from fourth quarter of 2010.
Ellie Mae's software and services revenue (its LOS business) was $8.4 million, an 18% increase from first quarter of 2010, but down 17% from fourth quarter of 2010. Network transaction revenue, which is generated when the company's users pay to access other service providers across the Ellie Mae Network, was $2.2 million, up 24% from first quarter of 2010, but down 15% from the previous quarter.
