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Yahoo reported its Q3 earnings today, and it’s not all good news. Well, on the positive side, Yahoo’s revenues are up to $1.8 million. The bad news is that it’s only 1% YOY. And the worse news is that their profits were $54.3 million in Q3—compared to $151.3 million for Q3 2007.
And possibly worst of all, Yahoo is trying to cut its annualized costs for this year from $3.9 billion down to $3.5 billion. Normally, cutting costs is a good idea, and this is a good idea—but it really sucks for the 10% of Yahoo’s workforce that will be getting pink slips over the coming weeks. At least 1430 employees will be laid off as the company tries to trim the bottom line.
Yahoo blames display ads’ drop off in recent months for their down turn, as ClickZ reports:
Guaranteed display ad volume and pricing was down in the U.S. as non-guaranteed ad volume and pricing rose, said [Yahoo President Sue] Decker, noting, “The majority of our business is premium.” Overall, spending was slower for most ad verticals, although finance, travel, retail, and auto were the hardest hit in Q3.
As paidContent points out, announcing layoffs “over the next several weeks” can have a serious impact on morale, especially in conjunction with today’s Q3 report and the difficulties in Washington for the Yahoo/Google ad deal.
It’s not easy to have a positive outlook when so much is going wrong for you. Then again, perhaps there’s nowhere to go but up for Yahoo. What do you think?
