Bebo UK made £1.1m loss in year to May 2009

Bebo UK saw pre-tax profits fall 143% year on year in the 12 months to the end of May 2009, according to accounts filed at Companies House.

Parent company AOL recently said it would be either closing or selling the social networking site, which it bought for $850 million (£417 million) in 2008.

In an email to employees, AOL said that Bebo “would require significant investment to compete in the competitive social networking space.

“AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking.”

According to the Companies House figures, Bebo’s UK business made a loss of £1.1 million, down from a pre-tax profit of £2.6 million the previous year. Operating profits were down 32% to £541,268.

According to the latest UKOM figures, for February 2010, Bebo has around 1.8 million users in the UK, down 12% month on month, putting it well behind top social networking site Facebook, which has 23.4 million UK users.

The UKOM figures, available on MediaTel’s new online database, show comprehensive traffic data for over 10,000 sites, including unique audience, active reach and gender profile.