The holiday and leisure web retailer Lastminute.com says it will break even in the UK and France within nine months.

Lastminute.com reported a 16.8% reduction in its quarterly loss to �8.9m ($12.9m) during the third quarter of this year.

So far this year, the company has achieved sales of �77.3m, 3.7 times the sales figure seen during the same period last year.

Lastminute.com's subscriber base has increased to 3.5m from about 2m a year earlier.

Optimistic

"The key fourth quarter has started extremely well with July 2001 total transaction value up 60% on June 2001," said chief executive Brent Hoberman.

Lastminute.com base their accounts on departure dates rather than on order dates.

As a consequence, a rise in transaction value is only to be expected during July and August, as well as during Christmas and Easter.

"The fourth quarter will see us exceed �45m total transaction value in a quarter for the first time," said chairman Allan Leighton.

This will bring the company's total turnover for the year to more than �122m.

"The benefits of our technology investment are progressively coming through, making Lastminute.com's site materially faster and more user friendly," Mr Hoberman said.

"The product is getting better, there is better availability, the site is easier to use and the brand name keeps growing," Mr Leighton said.

This has boosted customer loyalty and generated much new business, the company said.

Share price

Lastminute.com's share price remains weak, however, having dived to a low of 27p per share this year from its 487.5p peak during the dot.com boom last year.

On Thursday, following the result, the share rose 0.75p to 35p, a 2% increase.

The low share price does not worry the company.

"If we were the anomaly then we would not be so cheerful, but we are in line with everyone else. We are meeting our numbers and the share price does not impact on that," said co-founder Martha Lane Fox.