GoDaddy first-quarter revenue forecast misses estimates

(Reuters) - GoDaddy Inc forecast current-quarter revenue on Wednesday that missed analysts' estimates, sending its shares down more than 2 percent and overshadowing the web hosting company's strong fourth-quarter results.

For the first quarter, GoDaddy expects total revenue between $705 million and $715 million, while analysts were expecting $716.3 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The company also forecast full-year 2019 revenue in a range of $2.97 billion to $3.00 billion, compared with Wall Street estimates of $2.99 billion.

The world's largest domain name registrar said it had about 18.5 million customers at the end of the fourth quarter, up 6.8 percent compared with a year earlier. Average revenue per user rose 6.6 percent to $148 in the reported quarter.

Net income attributable to the company fell to $42.5 million, or 24 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from $92.6 million, or 54 cents per share, a year earlier.

Analysts were expecting the company to earn 14 cents per share.

Total revenue rose 15.5 percent to $695.8 million, beating estimates of $693.6 million.

(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)