The struggling Internet search engine Yahoo is up for sale, according to a report in Reuters. CEO Marissa Mayer may be facing uncertain future. Mayer joined Yahoo after a 13-year stint at main rival Google.
The report said the board of Yahoo is weighing a sale of its core Internet business when it meets this week.
The Yahoo board is expected to discuss whether to proceed with a plan to spin off more than $30 billion in shares of Alibaba Holding Group.
Yahoo’s core business, which includes popular services like Yahoo Mail and its news and sports sites, could attract private equity firms, media and telecom companies or firms like Softbank Group. There can be demand from telecom network operators as well. Recently, Verizon acquired AOL.
The report said Yahoo’s $1.1 billion deal in 2013 to acquire social blogging site Tumblr also hit snags, with investors arguing that Mayer overpaid for an unprofitable product. The deal lifted Yahoo’s user base to about 1 billion but did not bring in advertisers.
In September, Yahoo’s plans for the spinoff of its stake in Alibaba hit a roadblock when the U.S. Internal Revenue Service denied a request to bless the transaction as a tax-free deal.
During Mayer’s 13-year tenure at Google, she led the Google Earth, Gmail and Google News teams and is credited with helping create the company’s search page. But she could not repeat the success in Yahoo.
Yahoo revenue in Q3 2015 increased to $1,226 million from $1,148 million in Q3 2014 but dipped from $1,243 million in Q2 2015. It made a loss of $86 million in Q3 2015 against a profit of $42 million.
Mobile revenue of Yahoo represented 24 percent of traffic-driven revenue in the third quarter of 2015 from 20 percent. Search revenue rose 2 percent to $870 million, while display revenue of Yahoo grew 14 percent to $509 million.
Baburajan K
editor@infotechlead.com
