Yahoo Inc. met analysts' expectations yesterday and reported a net loss of $53.6 million, or 9 cents per share, up substantially from last year's loss of $11.5 million. It was the company's sixth quarterly loss in a row.
However, due to an accounting change the company was able to report income before taxes and the cumulative effect of the change of $10.5 million, or 2 cents per share. A year earlier Yahoo reported a net loss of $11.5 million, or 2 cents per share. Yahoo's net revenue for the quarter was $192.7 million, up from $180.2 million a year earlier.
The accounting change requires companies to assess the goodwill recorded form previous acquisitions and record one-time charges that do not affect cash or the company's operations. Goodwill is measured as the difference between what a company pays for an acquisition and the fair market value of the acquired company. Because of the accounting change, Yahoo had to include a non-cash charge of $64.1 million for the first quarter.
Yahoo said net revenue from its Marketing Services division fell to $120.9 million in the first quarter, from $141.9 million a year ago. Revenue from its Fees and Listings business rose to $54.9 million, from $33.2 million. Transactions revenue more than tripled to $16.6 million, from just over $5 million in 2001.
The company said it had cash and equivalents of $1.3 million at the end of the first quarter, down from $1.5 million last year.
In the first quarter, Yahoo's audience grew to 237 million unique users, up from 192 million in 2001. Traffic increased to 1.62 billion page views per day, from 1.1 billion.
