Renren Profit Falls

(RTTNews) - Renren Inc (RENN), the Chinese online social networking platform, on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter net earnings of $35 million or $0.10 per American depositary share, or ADS. This compares with a profit of $100.8 million or $0.27 per ADS last year.

Results for the quarter included a gain of $21.6 million on short-term investments, while the prior year had a gain of $132.7 million from the deconsolidation of subsidiaries, the company said.

Renren's revenues for the quarter slid 38.5% to $17.2 from $27.9 million in the prior year.

For the first quarter, Renren expects revenues of $11 million to $13 million.

"2014 was an important year of transformation for Renren. We reallocated our resources from group-buy e-commerce, on-line video and games development to new growth areas such as internet finance, leveraging our strength with college students from our core Renren social network," said CEO Joseph Chen.

"With a better cost structure in place, we believe the most challenging part of the transition is past us. Our recent initiatives in internet financial services have made an exciting start and we believe this can become a future growth engine," Chen said.