Amid a solid third quarter, Yahoo for the first time reported “material” contributions from mobile to its overall business, to the tune of $200 million for the period.
Mobile is still a relatively small part of the company’s business — that $200 million is out of $1.148 billion in total revenues for the quarter. But until now, Yahoo hadn’t reported mobile revenues as a separate revenue stream, because the company considered them not material to its overall finances.
Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, told investors that the company expects that its mobile revenues will exceed $1.2 billion this year.
“We have invested deeply in mobile and we are seeing those investments pay off,” Mayer said in a statement on the company’s earnings. “Not only are our mobile products attracting praise and engagement from users and industry awards, they are generating meaningful revenue for Yahoo.”
Yahoo’s recent investments in mobile include the purchase of mobile analytics company Flurry for anestimated price between $240-$300 million. It launched a series of new apps in finance, news and email as well as digital magazine support on Android and iOS during the third quarter. The company also pushed for more mobile content, including NFL Now on Yahoo across desktop and mobile.
Yahoo is also reportedly interested in investing as much as $20 million in photo messaging startup Snapchat, after its windfall from selling its shares of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.
Pamela Clark-Dickson, senior analyst in consumer services for Ovum, wrote in a recent research note thatYahoo has increasingly focused on mobile under Mayer and that the company had 430 million mobileusers in May of this year, up 43% — and that “the company expects its mobile traffic to outstrip its desktop traffic by the end of 2014.”
Overall, Yahoo reported revenues were up 1% year-over-year. Its profits for the quarter were $6.8 billion, a figure vastly boosted by the Alibaba Group share sale for $6.3 billion net. Yahoo reported $297 million in net income during the same period last year.
Yahoo reported that its display revenue was $447 million for the third quarter, down 5% year-over-year. Search revenue was up 4% from the third quarter of 2013, to $452 million.
