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On Monday, Yahoo turned in a solid financial report for the third quarter. In her first quarterly conference call, new CEO Marissa Mayer laid out her plan to focus the company’s efforts on mobile. Wall Street responded positively, sending Yahoo’s stock up.
In The New York Times, Nicole Perlroth observed, “Largely because of a long-awaited sale of its stake in Alibaba last month, Yahoo reported Monday that net income in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, rose sharply to $3.16 billion, or $2.64 a share, from $293 million, or 23 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago. That included a net gain of $2.8 billion related to the Alibaba sale and restructuring charges of $16 million, the company said.”
Bloomberg’s Douglas MacMillan wrote, “Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) rose to the highest price in a year after new Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer outlined her turnaround strategy for the biggest U.S. Web portal, emphasizing mobile technology and personalized services.” He added, “The company’s fifth CEO in four years plans to reverse three straight annual sales declines by recharging growth in existing businesses. Mayer plans to focus on small acquisitions of less than $100 million rather than large deals, and expects to move workers around within Yahoo instead of cutting large groups of employees, she said.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Amir Efrati reported, “Mayer said the company’s top priority is creating a ‘focused coherent mobile strategy,’ and it’s starting by building a strong base of programming talent. In the ‘near future,’ she said, ‘Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company, which means that at least half of our technical workforce should be working on mobile.'”
Alexei Oreskovic and Gerry Shih from Reuters noted that Yahoo still faces many challenges. “Roughly 700 million users still visit a Yahoo website every month – putting it in the top ranks globally. But the amount of activity people engage in on many sites is steadily declining and its smartphone offerings are deemed lackluster,” they wrote.
