While Yahoo’s quarterly earnings results beat analysts expectations, the completion of its sale to Verizon has been pushed back to the second fiscal quarter of 2017.
Revenue beats expectations
Annual revenue for the 2016 reached $5.16 billion USD, which surpasses the company’s 2015 annual revenue of $4.96 million.
Yahoo’s mobile revenue totaled $1.47 billion on $0.25 per share for the fourth quarter, following analyst expectations of $1.38 billion on $0.21 per share. That number is up from a quarterly revenue of $1.27 billion year over year.
In its earnings release, the company boasted over one billion total monthly users, 650 million mobile monthly users and an 85 percent uptick in time spent on Yahoo video products.
Furthermore, search revenue reached $767 million, ahead of the $698 million forecast by analysts.
Several launches indicate Yahoo’s renewed focus on mobile and video optimization, though the core business has struggled to keep up with the likes of Facebook and Google.
Some of these launches include new features for the Yahoo mobile app, the launch of Yahoo Sports ‘Game of the Day,’ Yahoo View on Android and others. Despite this however, the tech company held just over one percent of the world’s digital advertising market last year.
Investigations are still ongoing
These reports come on the heels of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the two major data breaches reported by Yahoo this past year. According to the Wall Street Journal, the investigation will explore whether these breaches should have been reported to Yahoo sooner.
These breaches were revealed to the public within months of each other, the first one comprising 500 million accounts and the second comprising one billion accounts.
It’s important to note that in Yahoo’s latest earnings report, it claims to have over one billion monthly accounts, meaning that the second breach could have affected a majority of Yahoo users.
A new direction still eludes Yahoo
While the company’s acquisition by Verizon was announced last year, Yahoo’s Q4 earnings revealed that it will likely be pushed back to the second fiscal quarter of 2017. The acquisition will reportedly be completed at the previously announced value of $4.8 billion.
In addition, it was recently rumoured that Yahoo would change its name to Altaba and that CEO Marissa Mayer would resign from the board, though these reports were eventually revealed to be false.
Over the past year, Mayer has made some critical moves in an attempt to save the struggling tech giant, including writing off the entire goodwill value that it paid to acquire Tumblr. The total value of the acquisition was completed for $990 million.
The company has also closed 22 offices, shuttered more than 120 products and reduced its headcount by 18 percent. Despite favourable earnings, there can be no doubt that the future of the once iconic internet giant is still uncertain.
[source]Yahoo[/source]
