Groupon CEO: 'We Are Happy With Our Progress'

Rich Williams, Groupon Inc GRPN's CEO was a guest on CNBC to discuss his company's first quarter results and outlook. Williams began the conversation by stating that he is "pretty happy" with the company's progress and this was evident as Groupon's first quarter revenue and EBITDA exceeded Wall Street's expectations. However, investors and traders were not impressed with Groupon's quarterly print as shares were trading lower by around 13 percent on Friday. "We are right on track with where we expected to be and where we need to be," he said. "We are improving the fundamentals of the business and we added almost a million customers on that increased marketing spend - the most we have done in years." Williams added that one million customer adds represents "really significant growth." He also noted that Groupon's platform added nearly 75,000 new active deals in North America alone. The CNBC hosts asked Williams to comment on Groupon's quarterly loss which more than tripled, mostly attributed to investments in marketing that is unlikely to pay off until 2017. The executive responded that Groupon heavily invested in "acquiring customers and acquiring lifetime value" which is going to "pay itself off over time." Meanwhile, these customers will be enticed by Groupon's proposition of selling products that "people do every day."