Yahoo

[CityFarmer]

The new CEO seems doing a good job for Yahoo...

Yahoo! overtakes Google in US website visitors for first time in two years

LONDON — Yahoo! attracted more website visitors in the United States than Google during July, pushing the company to the top of the online league for the first time in two years.

Nearly 197 million individuals visited a Yahoo! website last month, according to rankings from comScore, versus 192 million for Google. The last time Yahoo! outperformed Google was in May 2011.

The improvement suggests that changes under chief executive Marissa Mayer, who was recruited from Google, are beginning to resonate with the online audience. Mayer has revamped the Yahoo! home page, as well as email and weather services.

http://www.todayonline.com/tech/yahoo-ov...-two-years

[CityFarmer]

Do you like it? I don't feel great on the new logo...

Yahoo unveil new logo

SUNNYVALE (California) — Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company’s founding 18 years ago.

The redesigned look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, California, company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo’s CEO 14 months ago.

Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo’s front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices.

The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo’s US$1.1 billion (S$1.4 billion) purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo.

The logo was shown both with purple letters and in white with a purple background spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point.

“We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products,” a statement on the website said.
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http://www.todayonline.com/tech/yahoo-unveil-new-logo

[CityFarmer]

It will give more time for the CEO for her M&A to work...

Yahoo’s Alibaba stake takes heat off weak forecast

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo’s core online advertising business continued to struggle in the third quarter but its valuable investment in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba was enough to keep Wall Street satisfied yesterday (Oct 15).

Shares of Yahoo were up nearly one per cent at US$33.70 (S$42) in after-hours trading yesterday, as investors looked past ongoing pricing pressure and a weaker-than-expected financial outlook to focus on a revised agreement it struck with Alibaba.

Yahoo, which owns a 24 per cent stake in Alibaba, said it would sell fewer shares than originally agreed when Alibaba goes public.
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http://www.todayonline.com/business/yaho...k-forecast

[CityFarmer]

It takes days to fix hardware issue?

Lingering Yahoo Mail outage prompts apology

[SAN FRANCISCO] An outage at Yahoo Mail stretched into its second day on Wednesday, prompting the US Internet pioneer to apologize to unhappy users.

Yahoo would not disclose the number of email accounts knocked out of service since late Monday night California time.

"We are very sorry for recent difficulties with Yahoo Mail," the company's senior vice president of communication products Jeffrey Bonforte said in a short message posted at Tumblr.

He blamed the outage on a "hardware problem" at one of Yahoo's data centers.

"The issue has been harder to fix than we originally expected," Mr Bonforte said. "We have dozens of people working around the clock to bring it to a resolution." - AFP

Source: Business Times Breaking News

[CityFarmer]

Ms Marissa Mayer is lucky with Alibaba's performance...

Asian assets a lifeline for Yahoo!

NEW YORK — Yahoo!’s core business has been eroding. It has lost ground in display advertising and in online search, and the Wall Street consensus is its revenue declined last year.

When Ms Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!’s Chief Executive, unceremoniously dumped Mr Henrique de Castro, her top lieutenant, on Wednesday, it was an acknowledgment that she had so far failed to turn the company around.

But no matter: Wall Street greeted the news of Mr de Castro’s dismissal with a shrug. Regardless of what Ms Mayer does, the stock market loves Yahoo!. Its shares doubled in value last year, outstripping the performance of high-flying rivals like Google, AOL and Facebook. How is this feat even remotely possible?

Yahoo!’s lofty valuation makes sense only if you put its US business aside and think of the company as an investment in Asia. That’s the way Wall Street sees it. From this perspective, most of Yahoo!’s value is found in Japan and, especially, in China, where it has a large stake in the Internet colossus Alibaba.
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http://www.todayonline.com/business/asia...line-yahoo

[CityFarmer]

The honeymoon of the new CEO is ending soon...

Yahoo’s Q4 revenue slides as ad prices dip again

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo’s online ad prices slid again in the fourth quarter and Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant in which it owns a big stake, saw revenue growth decelerate from its recent rip-roaring pace.

Yahoo’s overall revenue fell 6 per cent in the last three months of the year to US$1.266 billion (763.570 million pounds), marking four consecutive quarters of eroding revenue. The company said that prices for both online display ads and search ads declined in the fourth quarter.
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http://www.todayonline.com/tech/yahoos-q...-dip-again

[yawnyawn]

I have taken a look at Yahoo recently due to its 35% and 24% equity stake in Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba respectively.

Brief background on Alibaba - Businesses in consumer e-commerce, online payment, business-to-business marketplaces and cloud computing and has expanded into new areas such as mobile apps, mobile operating system and Internet TV.

Major businesses in Alibaba
Taobao.com - C2C online marketplace in China, similar to Ebay. No.1 in market share.

Tmall.com - B2C online marketplace in China, it is like an online departmental store for well-known brands. Companies and authorized distributors pay a fee to open an online store after going through a stringent verification process.

Alipay - Most widely used third-party online payment platform in China. It is noted that Alibaba had spinned off Alipay without the consent of Yahoo and Softbank in 2011 but a settlement had been reached soon after.

According to the agreement, Alibaba will receive a one-off cash payment at 37.5 percent of Alipay's market value if it goes public, based on its IPO price. The cash proceeds will be no less than US$ 2 billion and no more than US$ 6 billion, according to the agreement. Based on such a range, Alipay is estimated to be valued between US$ 5.3 billion and US$ 16 billion in market capitalization.
http://english.caixin.com/2011-08-01/100286251.html

IPO's valuation in 2014/2015 estimated to be in the range of $120B.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-28...l-ipo.html

In the recent Q3'13 results, Yahoo! says it has amended the Alibaba deal to lower the number of shares it's required to sell following an IPO to 208M from a prior 261.5M. i.e. 40% of its 24% stake in Alibaba will be sold in the IPO
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/1...0A20131015
This is great for Yahoo! as I feel that Alibaba has the potential to multiply its market cap by a few times going by its current growth rates.

As of 5 Feb 2014
Market cap of Yahoo! - $36.12B
Market cap of Yahoo! Japan - $31.19B using USD/JPY 101. Since Yahoo has a 35% equity interest, its stake is worth ~$11B
Alibaba IPO estimated valuation - $120B

Divestment of 9.6% stake in Alibaba in the IPO (after 35% tax) - $7.5B
14.4% equity interest in Alibaba post-IPO - $17.3B

Basically, once I add up the stakes in Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba post-IPO, I get a value of $35.8B. So we are getting Yahoo! core business for a mere $300M. IF stock price of Yahoo! continues to fall in the coming weeks, I may look to purchase it as a play on Alibaba's IPO

[kyle]

Yahoo still has 3B cash. we get yahoo core business for free if Alibaba IPO is 120B.
Alibaba paid more than 7B RMB tax last year. 120B valuation or even more is quite possible...

[CityFarmer]

Google ID is quite common. I am not so sure net user like the idea of Yahoo's CEO...

Yahoo to stop user access of services with Facebook, Google IDs
05 Mar 2014 10:29
[SAN FRANCISCO] Yahoo Inc will stop letting consumers access its various online services, including Fantasy Sports and photo-sharing site Flickr, by signing-in with their Facebook Inc or Google Inc credentials.

The change, which will be rolled out gradually according to a Yahoo spokeswoman, will require users to register for a Yahoo ID in order to use any of the Internet portal's services.

The move marks the latest change to Yahoo by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who is striving to spark fresh interest in the company's Web products and to revive its stagnant revenue. "Yahoo is continually working on improving the user experience," the company said in a statement, noting that the new process "will allow us to offer the best personalized experience to everyone".

The first Yahoo service to require the new sign-in process is Yahoo Sports Tourney Pick'Em, a service focused on the NCAA college basketball tournament which begins later this month. News of the change to Yahoo's Tourney Pick'Em sign-in process was first reported by the technology blog Betanews.
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Ref: Business Times Breaking News

[CityFarmer]

I will say the lady CEO should feel glad that Yahoo owns part of the Aliabab. It has made her honeymoon period longer in Yahoo...

Yahoo stock surges in anticipation of Alibaba IPO

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo is getting another lift from its stake China’s Alibaba Group, a thriving Internet company that has helped mask Yahoo’s own financial funk.

Investors latched on to Yahoo Monday in anticipation of a huge windfall from Alibaba’s initial public offering of stock later this year. Alibaba triggered the latest wave of excitement about its forthcoming IPO with a Sunday announcement of its intention to list its stock on a United States exchange instead of in Hong Kong. The precise timing of the IPO is still unclear, although the documents for the filing are expected to be filed within the next six months.

Alibaba’s IPO is anticipated to produce Yahoo’s second multibillion dollar windfall in two years. The money could be used to pay stockholders a one-time dividend, buy back more stock or finance an acquisition of another Internet service that could help Yahoo bring in more revenue after years of contraction.

Yahoo’s stock gained US$1.51 (S$1.90), or 4 per cent, to close yesterday (March 17) at US$39.11. The shares have nearly doubled in the past year, primarily because Yahoo’s 24 per cent stake in Alibaba has been the only way for most investors to buy a slice of a company that is likened to China’s version of eBay and Amazon.com. Yahoo now boasts a market value US$39 billion — most of which analysts estimate is tied to Alibaba’s success.
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http://www.todayonline.com/tech/yahoo-st...libaba-ipo