Mayer Mum On Yahoo Bids, Reveals Other Tidbits To Investors
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, June 30, 2016
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo president and CEO, told investors at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting Thursday that its management team and board are fully aligned with one clear priority — “delivering shareholder value to all of you” through strategic alternatives, business and capital allocations.
“We have no announcements today, but continue to make great progress on our process,” Mayer said, referring to a possible divestiture of its core businesses, including search. “On a personal note, I will say I’ve been very heartened by the level of interest in Yahoo. It validates our business processes as well as our achievements to date.”
The first question from one investor involved the future of Yahoo and Yahoo shares. “Can you elaborate more on the sale of Yahoo or if there’s a way to keep Yahoo?” he asked. “I’d rather have Yahoo shares, if that’s possible.”
Mayer said that pursuing the separation of its equity assets from its operating business, the Internet business with products and services — search, mobile and others — will unlock “substantial value.”
In 2015, when a forward spin of Alibaba was “paused,” the board decided to look for alternatives — which means selling the operating business, which would transfer to a new owner. It achieves basically the same outcome as the forward spin.
During the meeting, Mayer also told investors that in 2015, the company had more than 30 major launches of new products to acquire new users and over 400 features delivering more than $5 billion in GAAP revenue, up 8% year over year.
Mobile monthly users grew by more than 600 million — up three times since the shift to the mobile strategy in 2012.
Yahoo also built its mobile, video, native and social businesses to $1.6 billion in revenue in 2015.
Another investor asked about Yahoo Mail, revealing that about or less than 1% of users pay for the service. Most of the mail revenue comes through advertising in mail.
“For every dollar that we make on Yahoo Mail on advertisements, we will make $3 elsewhere in our network on search or on some of our digital content,” Mayer said. “So mail is incredibly important for us because of the frequency it drives and because of the strength it drives throughout the network.”
MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily
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