Excite@Home Inc. announced Monday plans to cut 380 jobs as the high-speed Internet access company looks to reduce costs. This latest move from the company is yet another sign of the impact that falling advertising revenue is having on Internet-related companies.
While the layoffs will affect every division at the Redwood City, Calif.-based company, the reduction in staff will affect its media operations in particular, said the company in a statement. In addition to providing high-speed Internet access in the United States, Excite@Home’s media operations include Internet portal Excite.com and Blue Mountain Arts, a provider of online greeting cards.
The announcement of staff reductions follows an Excite@Home filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 19. The filing warned that a weak market for online advertising and marketing services would lead to significantly lower revenue for the company, greater operating losses and more rapid use of cash than previously forecast.
The staff reductions do not come as a surprise. Excite@Home is under pressure both to reduce costs and raise additional funding over the next two months, the filing said, explaining that the company may be required to restructure its media operations. In the filing, Excite@Home said the company’s aim is, in addition to reducing costs, to raise at least US$75 million to $80 million by June 30, 2001.
This is the second round of layoffs announced by Excite@Home this year. In January, the company announced that 250 staff would be let go. Most of those layoffs also came from the Excite@Home’s media operations.
Excite@Home, in Redwood City, Calif., can be reached at http://www.excite.com/.
