Yahoo has announced their fourth quarter earnings and the results look promising. The company experienced a slight decline in revenue, but an increase in search ad dollars. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz called it a “strong finish”, and said the year was a “transformative year for Yahoo.”
The decline in its revenue was four percent, year over year. This decline appears to be mostly attributable to a 15 percent drop in search ad revenue between Q4 2008 and Q4 2009. However, from the third quarter of 2009, revenue increased by 10 percent. Its search ad dollars also increased from last quarter by four percent.
Yahoo’s revenues were $1,732,000 in the fourth quarter, which, according to a Yahoo press release, “exceeded the top end of the company’s business outlook range.”
The company says that it gained income from operations this year ($119 million, in fact), whereas in 2008, the company lost more than double that ($278 million). These operations included restructuring charges, and advisory and retention costs related to the Microsoft search agreement.
Owned and operated display advertising revenue grew 26 percent compared to the third quarter of 2009. This is significant, when compared with the mere 16 percent it grew over the same period in 2008.
But it wasn’t all good: marketing service revenues, for their part, experienced a four percent decline, compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. On top of that, fees revenues decreased by seven percent. Marketing service revenues from owned and operated sites were $971 million, representing a nine percent decrease compared to last year’s fourth quarter. However, marketing service revenues from affiliate sites were up: they were $564 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, an increase of six percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.
Net income per diluted share during last quarter was $0.11. In the fourth quarter of 2008, shares experienced a loss of $0.21.
Bartz had this to say about the company’s enthusiasm for its results: “We beat the high end of our revenue guidance, saw demand for premium display advertising improve significantly, and grew owned and operated search advertising revenue sequentially for the first time since the third quarter of 2008.” She continued, saying that positive momentum was carrying them into 2010. Already, she explained, the midpoint of their first quarter (of 2010) revenue outlook marks the first quarter of year-over-year growth in six quarters.
The company’s Chief Financial Officer, Tim Morse, added that Yahoo is intensely focused on improving it entire execution, and is hoping to increase its operating margin and returns on capital over the next few years.
Kaila Krayewski is a freelance journalist with a passion for all things internet. Having worked for nearly two years as the public relations manager for an internation search engine optimization company, and publishing hundreds of articles (how-to, informational, and otherwise) on SEO, she knows a thing or two about the field. Furthermore, having just started up her own website blondetraveler.com, she is doing her best to keep one step ahead of the search engines in order to keep the traffic flowing.
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Tags: yahoo financial news, yahoo fourth quarter, yahoo Q4 results
