Misery for Mayer as Yahoo posts sluggish start to 2015
YAHOO’S earnings from its search and advertising businesses dipped at the start of the year, fuelling concerns over the company’s core operations as it spins off the last of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Chief executive Marissa Mayer, who joined the company three years ago with plans to kick-start its core business said: “Yahoo is amidst a multi-year transformation to return an iconic company to greatness.”
Revenue excluding commissions paid to search partners fell to $1.04bn (£0.7bn) in the first three months of 2015 from $1.09bn in the same period last year.
Display advertising revenue excluding commissions decreased by seven per cent to $381m. Search revenue excluding commissions was also down – it fell three per cent on the year to $432m.
The firm’s profit dropped sharply to $21.2m from $311.6m, taking earnings per share with it, from 29 cents a share last year to only two cents a share.
The company plans to sell off nearly $40bn of holdings in Alibaba this year and wants to switch focus to its core business of display adverts and searches.
It announced on Monday that it had altered the terms of its search partnership with Microsoft, which outsourced most of its search engine business. The new agreement offers Yahoo more flexibility in its search engine operations.