Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia XV conference started today in NYC, and Yahoo CEO Terry Semel spoke a little while ago…he warned that online advertising is slowing down in auto and financial service categories. The company expects to deliver Q3 results “at the bottom half of the range of financials” previously forecasted $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion range.
As a result, Yahoo’s stock is down about 10 percent.
Advertising from these key categories is “still very meaningful…They’re still growing, but they’re not growing as quickly as we might have hoped at this point in time.”
Reuters: “It’s a new trend. It’s been two to three weeks and we don’t know yet if it’s an indicator of a broader slowdown,” CFO Susan Decker later told reporters at the conference.
Decker, asked about Yahoo’s expectations for the online search advertising project known as “Panama,” again declined to offer any specific forecast, but said, “We see significant upside.” The new system, which is expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2007, will let Yahoo optimize ad placement based on numerous factors, including relevancy. It’s current system ranks ads based on price alone. “We feel really good about what it can do,” Ms. Decker said.
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