Yahoo Earnings Focus on Mavens Investments

Yahoo also reported that total traffic-driven revenue rose to $1.124 billion from $991 million a year ago. After adding in non-traffic revenue, Yahoo! had GAAP revenue of $1.243 billion versus $1.084 billion a year ago. Yahoo noted that its Mavens revenue represented 25% of traffic-driven revenue in the second quarter of 2014, but this was up to 35% in the second quarter of 2015.

24/7 Wall St. looked at each of its major segment results, including the commentary around its Mavens businesses of mobile, video, native and social.

Mobile revenue was $163 million a year ago and rose to $252 million in this year’s second quarter. Yahoo did note that its gross mobile revenue for the second quarter of 2014 and 2015 was approximately $272 million and $415 million, respectively.

Gross search revenue was $920 million for the second quarter of 2015, up 15% from a year ago. GAAP search revenue of $521 million was up 22%. The number of Paid Clicks rose by about 13%, while the price-per-click increased by about 4%.

Display revenue was $500 million for the second quarter, up 15%. The TAC paid to partners rose to $94 million from $42 million. The number of Ads Sold rose by 9% and the price-per-ad rose by about 10% from a year ago.

Yahoo shares were up 0.5% at $39.73 as of Tuesday’s close, and the stock down about 2.2% at $38.83 in the after-hours after the news was released. The after-hours trading volume was just under 1 million shares as of 4:25 p.m. Eastern Time.

ALSO READ: Facebook Now Worth More Than GE, JPMorgan & Walmart

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, said:

I’m extremely pleased with our achievements in the second quarter, with revenue growing 15% year-over-year, marking our most substantial GAAP revenue growth in almost 9 years. Our Mavens investment businesses across mobile, video, native and social grew to nearly $400 million in revenue this quarter, delivering 60% GAAP growth year-over-year. Further, our display business saw the most substantial revenue growth since 2010. Yahoo’s transformation continues to make great progress.

Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman said:

In addition to revenue outperformance, we reduced $30 million in sequential cash operating expenses driven by strategic headcount and footprint reductions, tight management of our discretionary costs and the benefit from IP monetization. As we continued to reduce our workforce to fewer than 11,000 full-time employees over the last quarter, we have also continued to realign our resources as we become a more efficient business.