Display Ad Revenue Modest in Yahoo Q1 2014 Earnings

Yahoo released their first quarter earnings report for 2014, and they just barely beat Wall Street estimates for their earnings. Analysts predicted that Yahoo would report earnings of $0.37 per share on a revenue of $1.08 billion, while they actually earned $0.38 a share on $1.087 billion in revenue.

Both search and paid click revenue increased for the company. Search revenue increased 5 percent over the first quarter of 2013 to $445 million. Their paid clicks increased by 6 percent, while the price per click rose 8 percent compared to the first quarter of 2013. Yahoo’s display advertising didn’t perform nearly as well, despite an increase of 2 percent in overall revenue. The price per display ad went down by 5 percent, however they sold 7 percent more display ads.

Yahoo has $4.6 billion in cash as of March 31, 2014. The company used $450 million to repurchase shares and paid a net $22 million for acquisitions during the first quarter.

Marissa Mayer, chief executive (CEO) of Yahoo, was pleased with the results and pointed to mobile as the anticipated driver of continued growth. “I am really pleased by our first quarter performance… And, with mobile pivotal to our future growth, we’re delighted to now see more than 430 million monthly mobile users accessing Yahoo’s new products.”

After the earnings were announced, Yahoo stock went up, however that was largely attributed to the fact that the company has a 24 percent stake in China’s Alibaba, which saw its revenue increase by 66 percent in the fourth quarter, a 110 percent increase. Alibaba is expected to go public this fall.