The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Yahoo! numbers! chill! investors!

Steady growth isn't enough

Free webcast: Service level monitoring and management

Yahoo!'s stock sank 10 per cent after it posted Q2 numbers today. The company earned $1.3bn in the quarter ending in June, Q2 FY2005, a 51 per cent increase year-on-year.

After advertising affiliate fees (or "traffic acquisition costs") of $485m, and operating expenses of $505m are deducted, Yahoo! earned $261m from operations.

Yahoo! booked an operating profit of $368m.

Yes, the internet pioneer is something of an accounting pioneer too, using cut-up techniques apparently borrowed from Brion Gysin to obfuscate its numbers. Footnotes are jammed between terms as "gross profit" and "net revenue". The company also disclosed a whopping one-time windfall of $563m from the sale of an investment, but wouldn't tell us what it was.

We can't be the only people having trouble reading. Reuters first headline triumphed, "Yahoo profit up, online advertising grows", but within an hour a second update had been issued, and this time the headline read "Yahoo revenue disappoints, shares drop".

Page views on Yahoo! properties dipped 3 per cent from the pervious quarter. Yahoo! added 7 million unique users in Q2, two per cent up, from the previous quarter, and the company continues to grow at a pace. Yahoo! employed 8,780 staff at the end of June, adding a net 700 jobs.

Analysts expressed concern about a slow down in advertising growth, and the stock sank to $34.44 in after-hours trading. ®

Related stories

Yahoo! growth! slows!
Yahoo! chief! scientist! joins! Microsoft!
Google and Yahoo! accused of click fraud collusion
Ad confidence spurs Yahoo!

.

Free webcast: Service level monitoring and management

Sign up, sign up for The Register's weekly mobile & wireless newsletter - click here

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes