Acxiom's earnings plunge 40 pct. in second quarter.

Acxiom Corp. of Little Rock on Wednesday announced second-quarter net income of about $9A5 million, or 12 cents per share.

The interactive marketing services firm's quarterly results reflect a 40 percent drop in earnings from the same quarter a year ago, when Acxiom posted earnings of about $15.9 million.

Acxiom reported total revenue of $210.2 million, which is down 10 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

CEO John Meyer called the quarter challenging but said he expects to see the company's financial performance improve in the second half of its fiscal year.

"The September quarter was another challenging period for us versus the prior-year quarter, but we are beginning to see signs of progress in the business," Meyer said.

"Our revenue and operating income results improved in the September quarter over the June quarter. In addition, several of our clients have indicated to us that they expect to increase their marketing spending during the second half of our fiscal year. This anticipated increase in client spending coupled with our continued emphasis on expense management gives us confidence that our second half operating income performance will improve over the first half of the fiscal year."

In the conference call, Meyer said that each industry group, even financial services, saw revenue growth from the first quarter of the company's fiscal 2010.

Acxiom added a few new clients, including United Airlines and NetSpend

Meyer added that Acxiom's European business remains an area of concern. The product business in Europe is struggling, and the problem is being exacerbated by a postal strike.