Yahoo did not have a good day on the stock market, closing down 6.14 percent. Yet somewhat surprisingly, it almost looks ready to have a decent tomorrow, following the company’s third quarter financial report.
The stock’s bounced back up 7.13 percent so far in after hours trading. Here’s a link to the official release, along withsome live observations and notes from the conference call.
Experts had put Yahoo on track to post earnings of nine cents per share. Yahoo hit the EPS on the head. Revenue, however, only increased by one percent since the same period last year.
Jerry Yang claimed in a statement, “The steps we are taking this quarter should deliver both near-term benefits to operating cash flow, and substantially enhance the nimbleness and flexibility with which we compete over the long term. We enter this slowing market with competitive advantages as the destination of choice for consumers and as a leader in providing online advertisers with the broadest set of advertising management tools and products in the industry. We plan to continue building on those strengths.”
Yahoo intends to cut its work force by 10 percent in order to achieve a goal of saving $400 million by year’s end.
Jerry Yang: “We are identifying ways we can work more efficiently.” “We anticipate that we will reduce our global workforce by at least 10 percent. . . . We’ll make every effort to ease the transition for Yahoos.” May relocate some operations and consolidate real estate. “Despite a tough environment, I remain very optimistic about Yahoo’s future . . . . The fact is: Yahoo represents the most reliable quality option.”
Yang: “We and Google are continuing to work with the DOJ and others . . . . We look forward to bringing the benefits of this procompetitive agreement to the marketplace as soon as possible.”
Sue Decker, President: “Audience engagement was a clear positive for Yahoo in the quarter. . . . When major events happen in the world, users flock to Yahoo.” Opening up to third party content, leveraging power of users, tailoring what users see on Yahoo based on Yahoo’s insights. Plugs new Yahoo homepage. “We plan to roll out content optimization on other parts of the homepage.” “Yahoo sites will no longer consist of static, programmed pages.”
Decker: “We see marketers adjusting their overall marketing spending.” “Smaller advertisers held up better in the first half,” but everything’s slowing now. Q4 and 2009 are expected to see slowing trend continue. “Our ambition is to come out of this downturn with a stronger market position.” On APT: “We’ve developed a game-changing, Web-based solution.”
Blake Jorgensen, CFO, acknowleges “a worsening economic environment.” “With the events of the last few weeks, we are cautious about the advertising market in Q4.” However, “We have no debt.” Cites value of Asian assets, and “we have taken a conservative approach to our capital structure and maintained flexibility with our cash and investment portfolio.”
