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Yahoo beats Q4 earnings expectations, pushes closing of Verizon deal into Q2

MaVeNS (mobile, video, native, social) properties and ad units generated over $2 billion for the year, or 39% of total revenue.

Greg Sterling on January 23, 2017 at 7:31 pm

Yahoo released fourth quarter and full year earnings this afternoon, beating analyst expectations. The company announced $1.47 billion in Q4 revenue and $5.2 billion for the full year.

The company also said that the Verizon deal, which was supposed to close in the first quarter, will now close in the second quarter:

Yahoo has continued to work with Verizon on integration planning for the sale of its core business. In terms of timing, Yahoo had previously stated that it expected to close the transaction in Q1. However, given work required to meet closing conditions, the transaction is now expected to close in Q2 of 2017. The company is working expeditiously to close the transaction as soon as practicable in Q2.

The delayed closing is likely related to the fallout from two massive hacking episodes reported after the acquisition was announced in July last year. Verizon was reportedly using the disclosures to negotiate a $1 billion price concession from Yahoo.

Search and display revenue were both down year-over-year, though price per click on the search side was up, and the number of display ads sold was up, too.

Ad revenue generated from mobile devices was $1.5 billion for the year, while the desktop contributed nearly $3.5 billion. Revenue coming from the so-called “MaVeNS” (mobile, video, native, social) cluster within Yahoo was just over $2 billion for the year (39 percent), while non-mavens revenue was $2.94 billion.

Cash and marketable securities grew more than $1 billion to $7.9 billion. As I write this, Yahoo stock is up and Verizon is down in after-hours trading.

About The Author

Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.