Yahoo’s first-quarter financial results issued on Tuesday slightly exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, but analysts said the numbers were not likely to aid Yahoo’s efforts to fend off Microsoft’s hostile bid or to extract a higher price.
Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang (楊致遠) said that the company’s solid performance reaffirmed the board’s conviction that Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover offer undervalued Yahoo.
Still, Yang said Yahoo remained open to “any and all” alternatives, including a deal with Microsoft.
Analysts said shareholders were likely to be relieved that Yahoo’s business appeared to have avoided any fallout from the economic slowdown. But they said the results would not break the stalemate between the companies.
“It was a solid quarter,” said Clayton Moran, an analyst with the Stanford Group. “But I don’t think it is something that will significantly alter the dynamics of the Microsoft negotiations.”
Earlier in the day, Microsoft, which has been adamant in its refusal to raise its offer for Yahoo, had already begun to play down any possible impact from Yahoo’s results.
“I wish Yahoo all the success with its results but it doesn’t affect the value of Yahoo to Microsoft,” Microsoft chief executive Steven Ballmer said on Tuesday in Morocco, a Reuters report said.
Ballmer has said recently that Yahoo’s business appears to be deteriorating. Analysts said the company’s results proved otherwise.
Yahoo said its net income, buoyed by an investment gain, rose sharply to US$542 million, or US$0.37 a share, from US$142 million, or US$0.10, a year earlier. The figure included a net noncash gain of US$401 million from Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba Group (阿里巴巴集團), a Chinese company, after the initial public offering of Alibaba.com.
Revenue grew 9 percent to US$1.81 billion. Net revenue, which excludes commissions paid to marketing partners, grew 14 percent to US$1.35 billion, slightly higher than the US$1.32 billion analysts had forecast. Yahoo had repeatedly forecast that net revenue would increase from 8 percent to 17 percent.
In a conference call with analysts, Yang said the results underscored “the fact that our strategy and investments are beginning to pay off.”
“Our ability to execute on multiple fronts is clearly improving,” Yang later added.
Yahoo raised profit forecasts for the remainder of the year, but left revenue growth projections unchanged.
“They didn’t put out a poor performance, and that was important,” said Christa Quarles, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners.
“But they didn’t put up a game-changing performance to the extent that revenue guidance remained the same. I don’t think Microsoft is going to look at this and say that things are dramatically different,” she said.
Investors appeared to echo that view.
After the report was issued, Yahoo shares fell slightly in after-hours trading, losing about US$0.15. They had closed at US$28.54, down US$0.01, in regular trading.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique