Spanish Internet media company Terra Lycos - which includes operations such as the Lycos portal, RagingBull.com, Tripod.com and Wired.com - says it has met Q3 revenue targets for the business.

Reporting Q3 results today it said revenues rolled in at €169m - well between the €165m and €175m it predicted back in July - and up a tad from the €162m in revenues generated in Q2.

Even though its EBITDA (earning before interest etc) performance improved 18 per cent on Q2, the company still made an EBITDA loss of €26m.

Sixty per cent of Terra Lycos' revenue came from its media business from such revenue streams as advertising, ecommerce and portal services subscriptions, while the rest came from its access business and communications services.

The company says its decision to charge for services and content is also beginning to pay off with revenue from this area making up 11 per cent of total revenue for the quarter.

For example, in May the company began offering a subscription-based email service which it said would appeal to those who have "grown beyond free email services".

The Lycos Mail Plus service costs $19.95 a year and provides punters with 25MB of storage, a service free of banner ads and POP3 email access.

On the access side of the business, Terra Lycos now has 342,000 ADSL customers at the end of September 2002. ®

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