Yahoo revealed its Q3 2013 results and has reported a 5 percent drop in revenue, when compared to Q3 2012; however, this does not affect the tenure of Marissa Mayer who will continue to serve as the CEO.
Yahoo announced the Q3 results on Tuesday, October 15 and the results reveal that the money the web portal makes from display and search ads are declining.
Despite selling slightly more display ads than in 2012, the price per ad (excluding Korea) has fallen, which as a result has brought down display revenue by 7 percent to $470 million.
"GAAP revenue was $1,139 million for the third quarter of 2013, a 5 percent decrease from the third quarter of 2012. Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs ("revenue ex-TAC") was $1,081 million for the third quarter of 2013, a 1 percent decrease compared to the third quarter of 2012," per Yahoo.
Yahoo's net earnings for Q3 2013 were $297 million, which is a 91 percent decrease when compared to $3,160 million in the same quarter last year. In Q3 2012, Yahoo made a net one-off gain of $2.8 billion, courtesy of the sale of Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba Group's shares.
Yahoo's GAAP income from operations was $93 million, which is a drop of 39 percent.
The non-GAAP income from operation for Q3 2013 was $358 million, decreasing by 24 percent from the same period in 2012.
Marissa Mayer took over as Yahoo's CEO in July 2012 and is still working towards reinstating the company and bring it back to the helm. Mayer has made a slew of acquisitions (including Tumblr for $1.1 million) and is also attempting to make products like Yahoo Mail (which recently encountered bugs post the revamp) cooler.
"I'm very pleased with our execution, especially as we've continued to invest in and strengthen our core business," said Mayer in a statement.
Even though the earnings figures see a decrease, they top Wall Street's expectations. However, the figures are reflective of the fact that Mayer is yet to successfully give a fillip to Yahoo's revenues.
"They beat the street on earnings but revenue is down," notes independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Yahoo is still having trouble growing ad revenue," he continued, noting that Google has been devouring the lion's share of online ad money and Facebook's portion is growing. It creates a difficult problem for Mayer. It appears she is just treading water at this point."
During an earnings presentation that was streamed live online, Mayer revealed that "it will take time for the increased engagement to translate into revenue." However, she assured that Yahoo was "on the right track."
