14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo isn’t doing too well financially, but then again, it’s not sinking either. According to the company’s latest financial results, Yahoo’s revenues reached $1.08 billion (€797 million) in the year’s third quarter, one percent under the results from a year ago.
The company’s performance in the past three months met expectations from financial experts, but they aren’t making anyone jump for joy.
Estimates indicated that Yahoo would report a net income of 33 cents a share, which was under the 34 cents a share actually reported by the Internet company.
“I’m very pleased with our execution, especially as we’ve continued to invest in and strengthen our core business. Now with more than 800 million monthly users on Yahoo – up 20 percent over the past 15 months – we’re achieving meaningful increases in user engagement and traffic,” Marissa Mayer said.
The company also reported a 7 percent decline in display advertising revenue, one percent decline in number of ads sold and an overall lower price per ad.
Furthermore, search revenue was up three percent, while paid clicks rose 21 percent, which is quite encouraging for the company. At the same time, price per click dropped some four percent.
Yahoo did say, however, that it has nearly $3.2 billion (€2.36 billion) of cash and securities on hand.
“In Q3, we generated free cash flow of $249 million and returned an additional $1.7 billion to shareholders through buybacks. As we exit Q3, we are extremely pleased with the strength of our balance sheet, with nearly $3.2 billion in cash and securities, and we are well positioned with ample liquidity to fund our future investments for growth,” said Ken Goldman, CFO of Yahoo.
The company will also continue to profit from its stake in China’s Alibaba Group. Yahoo announced it doesn’t have to sell as much of its 23 percent stake in Alibaba’s upcoming pulic offering, instead of nearly half. This means that the company stands to win a lot more money along with the Chinese company’s IPO.