Yahoo’s time as an independent company will be over by the end of this quarter, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t move toward positive profit growth and beat analysts’ estimates for how well they would do as they wind down their time under their own command. Where analysts said that Yahoo would likely post profits of 14 cents per share, they managed to post 18 cents per share for the quarter. Their total adjusted revenue figure of $833.8 million also beat out analysts, with most estimates pegging their number for the quarter around $814 million. While Yahoo didn’t manage to beat the somewhat dismal estimates by a huge margin, the fact that they have managed to surpass somewhat promising revenue growth despite their internal struggles is still a good sign for Verizon Wireless that will soon complete its acquisition of Yahoo’s core business.
Acting CEO Marissa Mayer, still set to be in a fairly high position with the company after they’re sold to Verizon, said that the company wants to finish its independent episode on a high note, and make the integration with Verizon as effortless as possible. Regardless of Yahoo’s recent financial performance, Verizon will still have to resolve some issues following the acquisition as the Sunnyvale-based company was recently revealed to have suffered several major data breaches in the past few years, with the number of compromised user accounts going into tens of millions following some incidents, and even hundreds of millions on other occasions. Because of this, Verizon managed to lower the price of the deal by $350 million.
It is worth noting that this is the first quarter out of the past ten that Yahoo has managed to exceed expectations, falling short nine quarters in a row amidst a series of questionable deals, declining user numbers, and hacking scandals. The remainder of the company that’s not being sold to Verizon including Yahoo Japan and a stake in Chinese trade giant Alibaba will likely be merged into a new company called Altaba in the future. Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo’s Internet business is currently set to be completed in June, so an update on the situation should follow shortly.