Yahoo! said that fourth quarter revenue excluding traffic acquisition cost was $1.228 billion. Wall St. expected a little least. No surprises here.
Yahoo!’s new ad search systems will be out ahead of schedule, on February 5.
But, if the new product will be out ahead of plan, and its is the solution to Yahoo!’s problems with revenue growth, why is the company’s forecast of 2007 so poor? The company expects Q1 to have revenue as low as $1.12 billion to $1.23 billion (excluding costs for traffic). Wall St. was expecting $1.26 billion. The forecast for the full year is even worse. Revenue of $4.95 billion to $5.45 billion against Wall St. forecasts of $5.47 billion. Revenue for 2006 was $4.56 billion.So, top line growth could be less that 10%.
Goldman Sachs cut Yahoo! to "neutral" from "buy" this morning.
If Panama is such a great move for Yahoo!, why will 2007 be so tough?
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.