Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer: Company Is No Longer in Decline

Yahoo reported better revenue and earnings per share than analysts expected

Yahoo

Yahoo’s stock has climbed six percent in after-hours trading after an earnings report that bested Wall Street analysts’ expectations, albeit slightly. The tech giant reported revenue of $1.09 billion and earnings per share of $0.38 per share — both $0.01 better than expected.

Yahoo neither grew nor contracted in the first quarter, and that will have to suffice as progress for a company that has not reported revenue growth the past several quarters.

“We believe we’ve moved our core business from being in decline to stable to modest growth,” CEO Marissa Mayer said on the company’s earnings call Tuesday, citing growth in both display and search revenue. She made the comments while showing a graph with five stages of growth.

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Mayer is still looking for a new top revenue officer after letting go COO Henrique De Castro – a high-profile executive she pilfered from Google, her former employer as well.

The big question marks surrounding Yahoo are Alibaba, the Chinese shopping giant in which Yahoo owns a stake, and mobile revenue, where Yahoo needs to exhibit growth.

Yahoo has experienced growth in users and page views for many of its new mobile properties, and Mayer identified mobile, social, native advertising and videos as the key areas of growth for Yahoo’s future.

Video is of the most interest to those in Hollywood, and there has been a lot of conversation about Yahoo’s strategy for original video. Some speculated they will fund premium shows like Netflix and others saying they are building their own YouTube. Mayer was deliberately vague Tuesday.

“We’ll continue to bring original content, but do so with more focus and quality,” Mayer said. “Smart and strategic investments in video can help us grow our consumer offerings, traffic and revenue.” 

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