Yahoo!, the most profitable internet company in the world, lost 15%
of its value when shares dropped following an announcement that its
earnings would fall in 2001 and that revenue growth would
significantly decelerate.
Yahoo!’s made the announcements along with fourth quarter
results that met expectations. Net revenues for the fourth quarter
increased 53% to $311 million, taking its total revenues for fiscal
2000 over $1.1 billion, an 88% increase on 1999.
Yahoo!'s global audience grew to 180 million unique users during
December, up from 120 million in December 1999. The company's
traffic increased to more than 900 million page views per day on
average during December 2000.
Yahoo! Europe's traffic, which is included in these page view
totals, increased to more than 45 million page views per day on
average in December. In addition, Yahoo! is ranked No. 1 among the
top five Web sites in average combined time spent by home and work
users, which was one hour and 37 minutes in November 2000.
Sue Decker, Yahoo!'s chief financial officer and senior vice
president of Finance and Administration said: "Over the next year,
we expect to see some short-term effects from the apparent
softening economy and the continued realignment of our client
base."
For the full year 2001, Yahoo! expects revenues to be $1.2
billion to $1.3 billion, compared to analyst expectations of over
$1.4 billion. These figures represent a deceleration in growth of
around 70%. Yahoo! said that pure internet advertising will decline
sharply as a proportion of its revenues. Yesterday, Yahoo!’s shares
traded at $25, a fall of 88% since their peak last year.
