14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo has revealed its financial results for the first quarter of 2014 and they’re not really impressive, falling in line with Wall Street expectations.
Yahoo reported revenue of $1.087 billion (€785 million), an increase of one percent over last year’s results. Revenue from advertising display climbed two percent to $409 million (€295.4 million) in the same quarter, while the number of ads sold by the company rose seven percent, which indicates to a decline in price per ad.
The Internet giant also saw an increase in search revenue which was of $444 million (€320.7 million) in the first three months of the year, nine percent over the results obtained last year. The paid clicks increased some six percent as well, while the price per click rose eight percent.
“I am really pleased by our first quarter performance, marking our best Q1 revenue ex-TAC since 2010. Buoyed by our 9th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in Search revenue ex-TAC and our first quarter of Q1 year-over-year growth in display revenue ex-TAC since 2011, Q1 was an early and important sign of growth in our core business. And, with mobile pivotal to our future growth, we're delighted to now see more than 430 million monthly mobile users accessing Yahoo's new products,” said Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO.
The fact that Yahoo managed to have relatively good results is due to its ownership of 24 percent of the Alibaba Group. The e-commerce Chinese giant is getting ready for one of the biggest IPOs in tech and has chosen the United States for this. The group’s revenue rose 66 percent to $3.1 billion (€2.24 billion), while the net income increased by 110 percent to $1.4 billion (€1 billion).
“Capital allocation is important, and we intend to continue to act as good stewards by allocating current capital and future cash in ways that maximize value for Yahoo shareholders in both the short and long term. We continue to focus on repurchasing shares. Our total repurchases are at just under $6 billion since the beginning of 2012, including repurchases of $450 million (€325 million) in the first quarter,” said Ken Golman, chief financial officer at Yahoo.
In the same three months of 2014, the company was quite busy. It launched new products and improved the existing ones, seeking to bring some innovation to the daily habits of users around the world. Two digital magazines were released, as well as a few mobile apps.