Once regarded as the "coolest" sector, Yahoo Internet firm! has much lost his aura in Silicon Valley, where engineers and investors swear more than Google. And this is not the announcement of its results for the third quarter which is expected to reverse the trend: Yahoo! Indeed, should today publish poor results, with a heavy layoffs at the key plan. Analysts expect a decrease in the profits of the order of 27 and 6.5 of the turnover.
By comparison, Google, whose model appears to be sealed to the crisis, announced for the same period of financial performance which again exceeded forecasts ("Les Echos" of yesterday). So as the co-founder and CEO of Yahoo!, Jerry Yang, is more than ever under pressure. Exchanging 13 $ on Wall Street, the action has lost 56 percent of its value in one year.
What strengthen the confidence of the market towards the direction of Yahoo! last spring, who refused an offer to purchase of Microsoft to $ 33 per share. As Steve Ballmer, CEO of the software giant, is today the burden: he reiterated Thursday last as an acquisition "have sense for shareholders" Yahoo! and Microsoft.
20 of employees
In these circumstances, Yahoo!, which has already announced 1,100 layoffs earlier this year, should today concede further reductions of staff in an attempt to loosen the grip and be committed to its shareholders. In the restless Carl Icahn. The billionaire, which holds 4 of the capital and has obtained three seats out of eleven to the Board of Directors, still advocates a marriage with Microsoft. Sunnyvale firm HQ, we expect a restructuring that could affect more than 20 of the population. According to the blog Valley Wag, usually well informed, Yahoo! could announce 3,000 to 3,500 deletions of posts among the 14.300 employees of the company, with a severance pay revised downwards. Less pessimistic, "wall street Journal" provides an extension of the plan already announced in January, without more details.
Since he took the succession of the CEO Terry Semel in June 2007, Jerry Yang has slaved to convince that he had a clear strategy to boost the growth of the group. Yahoo. It is left behind by Google since 2005, without ever reaching to reverse the trend. And this despite a global audience of 470 million monthly unique visitors (recently overtaken by Google), larger than that of Google advertising network (86 versus 83 us traffic, according to comScore) and advertising tools (Panama for targeted ads, AMP for banners). The result for 2008, Yahoo! should make a little over $ 7 billion of turnover, there where Google should largely pass the bar of $ 20 billion.
In the current context, the reasons for hope are dampened. Yahoo. traditionally is leader on the market of the banners, but these are hit hard by the slowdown in investments on the Internet. Another problem, the implementation of the advertising partnership this year with Google has been suspended pending the verdict of the anti trust authorities. This agreement should generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenues for Yahoo! next year...
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