Nearly two years to the day that Marissa Mayer took the helm at Yahoo, the company’s turnaround is still a work in progress. And its fortunes are still very much tied to its stake in Alibaba, the private Chinese Internet company expected to go public next month.
玛丽莎·梅耶尔(Marissa Mayer)掌舵雅虎两周年将至，公司局面仍未彻底扭转。雅虎的命运还与它在中国互联网私营企业阿里巴巴所持有的股份密切相关。后者预计将于下月上市。
It’s easy for Wall Street to overlook Yahoo’s lackluster performance, when it is so busy salivating over the company’s holdings in Alibaba. On Tuesday, when Yahoo announced its second-quarter earnings, it said it had reached an agreement with Alibaba to reduce the number of shares it is required to sell in the initial public offering, to 140 million shares from 208 million shares. Conservative estimates predict Alibaba will be valued at $150 billion when it goes public, more than five times Yahoo’s current $35 billion market valuation.
华尔街很容易忽略雅虎黯淡无光的业绩，因为他们此时正垂涎于雅虎持有的阿里巴巴股份。周二，雅虎在宣布第二季度收益时表示，已与阿里巴巴达成协议，在阿里巴巴上市时，它必须出售的阿里巴巴股份将从2.08亿股减少到1.4亿股。据保守估计，阿里巴巴上市时的估值将达到1500亿美元，这是雅虎目前市值350亿美元的四倍还多。
More good news for shareholders came from the earnings report: Kenneth A. Goldman, Yahoo’s chief financial officer, told investors that Yahoo planned to return at least half of its after-tax profits from the Alibaba offering to shareholders. If Yahoo can find a tax-efficient way to distribute those fortunes, Wall Street has reason for optimism.
收益报告还给股东们带来了更多好消息：雅虎的首席财务官肯尼斯·A·古德曼(Kenneth A. Goldman)告诉投资者，雅虎计划把从阿里巴巴上市中获得的税后收益的至少一半返还给股东。如果雅虎能找到一种合理避税的方法来分配这些财富，华尔街有理由感到乐观。
Still, even the hoopla over the Alibaba news was not enough to distract from the other problems at Yahoo, where Ms. Mayer’s best efforts to drive more content and acquire fresh talent and innovative products through acquisitions have done little to bolster the company’s financial performance.
不过，即使是与阿里巴巴有关的消息所引起的兴奋，也不足以让人们忽视雅虎的其他问题。梅耶尔通过多笔收购来增加内容、获得新鲜人才和创新产品的重磅行动，基本上未能提振公司的财务业绩。
“Things aren’t getting better,” Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, put it bluntly. “The core business is still dismal.”
“情况没有在改善，”BGC Partners的分析师科林·吉利斯(Colin Gillis)直言不讳地说，“核心业务仍然令人沮丧。”
On Tuesday, Ms. Mayer announced the worst revenue number since she took over. Yahoo’s revenue fell 4 percent last quarter, to $1.08 billion from the year-ago quarter.
周二，梅耶尔宣布了她执掌雅虎以来最糟糕的营收数据。雅虎的上季度营收同比下降了4%，为10.8亿美元。
Ms. Mayer was the first to admit disappointment. “Our top priority is revenue growth, and by that measure, we are not satisfied with our Q2 results,” she said. “While several areas showed strength, their growth was offset by declines.”
梅耶尔率先承认这些数据令人失望。“营收增长是我们的最首要任务，但以这个标准来看，二季度的业绩无法令人满意，”她说，“尽管有几个领域显示出了优势，但它们的增长被一些下滑所抵消。”
Yahoo’s revenue from its display advertising business fell 8 percent last quarter, to $436 million, compared with the same quarter a year ago, in large part because Google and Facebook continue to capture ever larger shares of the United States display ad market.
雅虎的展示广告业务的营收上季度同比下降了8%，为4.36亿美元，这很大程度是因为谷歌和Facebook在美国展示广告市场的份额仍在不断扩大。
Yahoo, once the top seller of display ads in the United States, is projected to drop to 6 percent market share, from 7.1 percent market share last year, even though the overall display ad market is expected to grow by 23.8 percent this year, according to eMarketer.
雅虎曾是美国最大的展示广告销售商。根据eMarketer的数据，尽管整个展示广告市场预计今年将增长23.8%，预计雅虎的市场份额将从去年的7.1%降至6%。
On Tuesday, Yahoo said its income from operations slid 72 percent, to $38 million, from the year-ago quarter, much of that because of a restructuring charge. Net earnings for the second quarter were down 19 percent, to $270 million, or 26 cents a share, from $331 million or 30 cents a share.
雅虎周二表示，二季度的运营收入同比下滑了72%，为3800万美元，这主要是因为重组的费用。二季度的净利润同比下降了19%，为2.7亿美元，即每股26美分，去年同期分别为3.31亿美元和每股30美分。
That net income was below the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who forecast an average of 33 cents a share. But the biggest black hole continues to be Yahoo’s revenue from mobile advertising, considered the hottest growth area for Internet companies. Yahoo did not report its mobile ad revenue on Tuesday, even though the market for mobile advertising is expected to reach $17.73 billion this year, an 83 percent jump from last year, according to eMarketer.
这个净收入低于华尔街分析师的预期，后者预测的平均值为每股33美分。但最大的黑洞仍然是雅虎移动广告的营收，它被认为是互联网公司最炙手可热的增长领域。雅虎周二没有披露其移动广告收入，根据eMarketer，预计今年移动广告市场规模将达到177.3亿美元，较去年飙升83%。
Even with the fortunes from Alibaba’s looming I.P.O., shares of Yahoo fell 2 percent in after-hours trading, after ending regular trading down 9 cents, or 0.25 percent, to $35.61.
即使拥有阿里巴巴的上市即将带来的财富，雅虎股票盘后交易时段仍然下跌了2%，此前，它在常规交易时段收盘时下跌9美分，即0.25%，至35.61美元。