Yahoo suffers after chief’s exit but Intel upbeat over UK
YAHOO last night paid the price for a summer of discontent and weak online advertising as it reported a third quarter slump.
Profits for the quarter, the last under chief executive Carol Bartz, who was fired in September, fell 26 per cent to $293m (£186.57m), or 23 cents per share. Net revenue, which excludes fees paid to partner websites, dropped 4.5 per cent to $1.07bn on the same period last year.
The firm, which has appointed finance director Tim Morse as interim chief executive, predicted fourth-quarter net revenue of $1.125bn to $1.235bn. It has retained investment banking firm Allen & Co as it conducts a “strategic review” of its business, which could see co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo take control in a $20bn deal with private equity.
Meanwhile chipmaker Intel took a more upbeat view as demand for its Notebook helped it record quarterly results. It said sales for the three months to the end of September would be between $14.2bn and $15.2bn, despite concerns over its ability to compete with smartphones such as Apple’s iPad and Google’s Android.
Graham Palmer, managing director of Intel UK, told City A. M. that British consumer confidence was returning slightly quicker than in the US or the rest of Western Europe.