Yahoo Inc.'s first-quarter results eclipsed analyst's forecasts, but not enough to support its demands for software maker Microsoft Corp. to raise its takeover bid above 45 billion U.S. dollars.
"This doesn't change the picture much at all," Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marianne Wolk said.
The Sunnyvale-based company said Tuesday it earned 542.2 million dollars, or 37 cents per share, more than triple its profit of 142.4 million dollars, or 10 cents per share, at the same time last year.
Most of the first-quarter improvement came from a non-cash gain of 401 million dollars recorded to recognize Yahoo's stake in the parent company of Alibaba.com, a leading e-commerce site in China that went public last year.
If not for the Alibaba windfall, Yahoo would have earned 11 cents per share — comparable to its profit at the same time last year, on an apples-to-apples basis. The earnings were two cents above the average estimate on the same basis among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Yahoo's first-quarter revenue climbed 9 percent to 1.82 billion dollars. After subtracting commissions Yahoo paid its advertising partners, its revenue totaled 1.35 billion dollars — just 30 million dollars ahead of analysts’average projection.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, reiterated the software maker has no plans to sweeten its offer. "We think we can accelerate our strategy by buying Yahoo and will pay what makes sense for our shareholders," Ballmer said in remarks made before Yahoo's first-quarter report came out.
Jerry Yang, Yahoo's co-founder, CEO and a board member, made it clear the company won't sell to Microsoft unless the bid is raised. "Our ability to execute on multiple fronts is clearly improving," he told analysts during a Tuesday conference call.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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