Financial news and information agency Thomson Reuters posted lower quarterly net profit and revenue Thursday but forecast renewed growth this quarter.
Thomson Reuters, which is incorporated in Canada and has its headquarters in New York, said second-quarter net profit declined eight percent to 290 million dollars from a year ago.
Earnings per share of 47 cents were slightly below the 48 cents forecast by Wall Street analysts.
Revenue dipped two percent to 3.2 billion dollars.
Thomson Reuters said it expected growth to resume in the July-September quarter and for revenue to be "flat to slightly down" for the year.
"While our markets are only slowly improving, we have seen accelerating results in terms of revenues, net sales and customer uptake of our new products," Thomson Reuters chief executive Thomas Glocer said in a statement.
"Based on these encouraging trends, we expect that Thomson Reuters will return to revenue growth in the third quarter," Glocer said.
"We attribute our expected return to growth to our decision not to cut investment in innovation and new product platforms in 2010," he said.
Thomson Reuters professional division, which includes legal, tax and accounting, health care and science products, saw a two percent increase in revenue to 1.39 billion dollars.
Revenue in the markets division, which provides financial and other products, fell four percent to 1.82 billion dollars.
Media segment revenue alone was down four percent to 79 million dollars with Thomson Reuters saying business "continues to be impacted by tightened customer budgets."
Net sales, however, turned positive on a major contract with US cable television news network CNN, Thomson Reuters said. CNN severed ties with US news agency the Associated Press in June.
Glocer said it "continues to be a difficult media market in the United States" but "there are a couple of other larger deals like that out there."
"The overall trends are good for what we do," he said, citing the need, for example, for newspaper websites to have a video component.
Thomson Reuters said it employed around 55,000 people and there had been a slight increase in its media operation, from 2,800 to 2,900, due mainly to the launch of Reuters Insider.
Thomson Reuters said Reuters Insider, a multimedia information service for financial service clients, had attracted 40,000 subscribers from some 8,000 companies.
Thomson Reuters also said it experienced double-digit revenue growth from products directly available to consumers, notably from advertising and a news application designed for Apple's iPad.
Thomson Reuters shares were down 2.38 percent at 37.31 dollars in early afternoon trading in New York.
Copyright 2010 AFP American Edition
