‘Rosetta Stone: give me a break. As if. Stupid ad.’
courtesy of ‘diaper’

So apparently when the economy is in the shitter, people spend money on learning new languages. Who knew? Arlington-based Rosetta Stone, maker of popular language-learning software, reported $56.5 million Q2 revenue this quarter as compared to $47.7 million in the 2nd quarter of 2008, and saw a 26% increase in the average cost of its language software to $361. So not only do people take to learning new languages during an economic meltdown, they are also willing to spend MORE money to do so? Huh?

Although the positive growth in revenue should be positive news for the company itself, investors won’t be as happy to find out that Rosetta Stone had to take a $7.3 million net loss for the quarter, or $0.42/share. The net loss is attributed to costs associated with it’s IPO this past April, through which it raised $112.5 million. That said, the company is forcasting 2009 revenue totals of $248 million, up from $209.4 million in 2008. If they can hit that target, their investors will likely be pretty happy multi-lingual campers.

Liam Darmody

Liam Darmody moved to DC in 2001 by way of Boston, Beverly Hills, and Toronto, Canada (his home and native land) to pursue his dream of becoming a politician. He changed his dream upon meeting actual politicians and has since been seen eating, drinking, shopping, golfing (poorly), blogging, and goofing off in general around our fair city. By day he works socially as a product manager, and by night he’s all over the place. Connect with him digitally via Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, or Facebook, or by e-mail at ldarmody at welovedc dot com.