Saturday, August 14.
In the morning on the east coast of North America, when countless media were discussing the impact of the sudden stop of the Federal Department of Justice’s investigation into Microsoft’s antitrust, and how it would affect the Nasdaq stock market next week, Yahoo finally released the company’s second-quarter financial results. Report.
In the second quarter of 1999, Yahoo's revenue reached US$1.0322 billion, a substantial increase of 172.5% compared to the US$399.7 million in the same period last year. At the same time, compared with the loss in the same period last year, Yahoo's net profit in the second quarter reached 105.3 million US dollars.
In addition to total revenue, the performance of Yahoo's various business segments is very eye-catching.
Affected by the substantial increase in online advertising by new technology companies in the first half of the year, Yahoo’s key Internet advertising business, including Yahoo’s own platform and Yahoo’s advertising alliance, has an overall revenue of US$811.3 million, an increase compared to the same period last year. Reached 187.6%, exceeding the 15.1 percentage points of Yahoo's overall revenue growth in the second quarter year-on-year.
In terms of Yahoo Music Store, due to the continuous sales of Fireflyer, the revenue of Yahoo Music Store in the second quarter was US$125.3 million, a 66% increase compared to the US$75.3 million in the same period last year. .
In addition to the main advertising business and music sales, the overall revenue scale of Yahoo's corporate email, online payment and other businesses has also reached 95.6 million US dollars, which has achieved very impressive growth year-on-year.
With the release of Yahoo's second-quarter financial report, whether it is a single quarter that breaks through 1 billion US dollars in revenue, or Yahoo's first net profit of more than 100 million US dollars, the entire Internet industry is paying attention.
Moreover, the financial report also pointed out that although Yahoo's advertising business will fall into a trough for a period of time following the collapse of the Nasdaq index, under the background of the continuous explosive growth of Internet users, relying on the long-tail theoretical model to establish Yahoo's advertising business The income system will soon recover and achieve sustainable growth.
In addition, with the global promotion of Yahoo's mini music store equipment and the successful access of millions of songs from the two major record companies, EMI and Universal, the company expects that the revenue of Yahoo's music store in the next two quarters will not be affected. The impact of the bursting of the Internet bubble may even achieve a continuous and substantial growth of more than 100% month on month.
Even though the overall revenue situation in the second half of the year will decline, after seven years of accumulation, Yahoo is expected to reach a revenue of about 3.5 billion US dollars for the whole year, which still makes many people who are interested in the new technology industry following the collapse of Nasdaq Investors who lost faith regained hope.
Many people think again of Eric's words in an interview with the "New York Times" last year: In a huge market with 1 billion top-quality user bases, what else is impossible
As of the first half of 1999, the number of global Internet users has exceeded 250 million. According to the current growth rate, in 2002, the number of global Internet users will reach 500 million, and in 2005, this number will touch the 1 billion mark.
It can be foreseen that the doubling of the number of users definitely means more than simply doubling the revenue of Internet companies. With the further maturity of the Internet industry, the average expenditure on Internet platforms will also increase exponentially, whether it is an individual or a business.
After comprehensive consideration, with the growth of the number of Internet users in the new technology industry, the overall industrial scale will also show an exponential rise.
Yahoo has been able to achieve a revenue of about 3.5 billion US dollars this year. Then, three years later, or even six years later, perhaps only net profit, Yahoo will be able to exceed the current revenue scale.
With the announcement of Yahoo's financial report, investors who had experienced panic for nearly a month calmed down and realized again that the new technology industry is definitely not just a bunch of bubbles, but can also bring real revenue.
At the same time, Wall Street capital, which suffered heavy losses in the Nasdaq crash, quickly took advantage of this opportunity to make efforts in order to create an opportunity for itself to unwind.
A series of optimistic remarks on the new technology market quickly appeared in the media. Many well-known analysts on Wall Street have changed their direction, saying that even if there is a bubble component, after a month-long plunge, the moisture in the Nasdaq index is also has dissipated. In the next few years, the new technology industry will still show a state of vigorous development.
Then, the next day.
After Yahoo’s second-quarter financial report yesterday, it announced again through its portal website: Microsoft will unconditionally give up its subscription rights to 30% of Yahoo’s shares, but at the same time, Yahoo’s browser will continue to maintain Windows browser by paying Microsoft’s pre-installation fee. The status of the system default browser.
In recent years, many arguments believe that the biggest reason for the rapid development of Yahoo Portal is that the Yahoo browser, which is pre-installed software in Windows systems, provides Yahoo Portal with a large amount of traffic.
The industry has been watching closely since Yahoo's five-year contract with Microsoft expired last month.
Now, Yahoo not only got rid of the original contract without any burden, but also continued to obtain the status of the default browser on the Windows platform. Even if it needs to pay Microsoft an expensive pre-installation fee, almost all analysts understand that Yahoo is This cooperation took a very big advantage.
Therefore, the impact of this news on the industry is no less than the sudden announcement by the Federal Department of Justice on Friday to abandon the antitrust investigation of Microsoft.
Some mind-blowing media even began to speculate whether there is an intrinsic connection between these two unexpected events.
Of course, the truth will likely never become public.
Moreover, most people's attention has shifted to the Nasdaq index in the new week.
As the week-long gathering draws to a close, some executives with tight schedules have begun to leave.
Sunday afternoon.
Eric and Yahoo CEO Ian Grenier appeared on a ranch in Tasmania, southern Australia.
Tasmania is more than 200 kilometers south of the Australian mainland and covers an area of more than 60,000 square kilometers.
During the time the girl was in Australia, Eric specially asked her to buy some land on this island. At this time, including the pastures under his feet and the mountains not far away, Eric already owned more than 200 square kilometers of private territory on this island at the end of the world.
Due to the temperate maritime climate, although it is mid-winter, this pasture in the northwest of Tasmania is not cold, and the surroundings are still full of greenery.
Walking side by side with Ian Grenier with his hands in the windbreaker pockets, Eric admired the surrounding scenery and said, "Ian, do you know what is the most enthusiastic donation project after Warren founded the Buffett Foundation?" ?"
Ian Grenier didn't know if Eric's words were a joke. The Buffett Foundation has always been known for being stingy. Over the years, the growth rate of the Buffett Foundation's assets has far exceeded its donation expenditure. However, he still smiled and replied, "It should be population control, right?"
"This is in recent years," Eric shook his head, and said, "Before the 1990s, Warren's most concerned project was how to prevent nuclear war, and he only performed better in terms of project donations in this area." Usually more generous."
Ian Grenier looked at the empty low sky above his head, and said, "So, you are also worried?"
In the event of a world-class nuclear war, Australia is indeed the continent most likely to stay out of it.
Eric nodded and said: "There is a theory about nuclear war. If you drop a black stone on a beach covered with millions of white stones, people will pick up one every day. So, although the probability is very small, but One day, a black stone will be picked up by someone, and this black stone represents a nuclear war. However, in my opinion, a black stone in a pile of white stones, such an obvious target, is more likely to be picked up than Any other white stone is much bigger."
Ian Grenier was silent for a moment thoughtfully, and said, "I think the possibility of a large-scale nuclear war is still very low."
"Who knows, when a nuclear warhead is fired, the attacked is destined to launch a counterattack, and then the attacker attacks again, and the counterattacker continues to counterattack, which is a deadlock. At that time, unless God can show up in person and stop, the result will be It can only be destruction. Because unlike any traditional war, there can be no winner in a nuclear war.”
"Maybe it's time for me to buy a farm in Australia." Ian Grenier smiled, feeling that the topic was a bit heavy, and turned away: "Eric, in fact, I am more optimistic about online games than cloud computing." business."
In the last week, Yahoo has re-defined the next step of development.
In Saturday's quarterly earnings report, Yahoo still did not separate out the revenue brought by the search engine business to the company. But in fact, Google search engine accounted for more than 30% of Yahoo’s $811.3 million in advertising revenue in the second quarter. This also made all Yahoo executives clearly aware of the search engine business. huge potential.
Therefore, in the next few years, the search engine business will become the top priority of Yahoo.
In addition to search engines, the second is social networking.
Like Google, Eric has privately had Yahoo register Facebook's domain name.
With the further explosion of the number of Internet users in the world, it is time to focus on promoting Internet social networks. After several years of operation and exploration of Yahoo's personal homepage, coupled with some experience in Eric's memory, Yahoo's management has also summed up the general model of social network development.
Eric's basic plan is that in the next few years, Google and Facebook will set up separate subsidiaries one after another, attached to the integrated Yahoo Network Group. At the same time, Yahoo will focus on the development of the two cores of search engine and social network at all costs, even if it gives up other businesses.
But in addition to search engines and social networks, during this meeting, Eric also put Yahoo's cloud computing business that has been brewing on the agenda.
In memory, the rise of cloud computing is about ten years later.
But in Eric's view, the cloud computing business will not be restricted by the various development stages of the Internet. The reason why it started to rise ten years later is only because the Internet industry realized the broad prospects of cloud computing business at that time, and gradually mastered the business operation model of cloud computing business.
Since Yahoo can successfully promote the Internet advertising business in advance and develop cloud computing in advance, naturally there will be no problem.
With the bursting of the new technology bubble, now is also the best opportunity to develop cloud computing.
After all, compared with the traditional website hosting business, adopting the cloud computing model, Internet companies who want to operate a website will not need to do complicated equipment purchase, website construction, post-maintenance, etc., any of which can save a lot of work. the cost of. In the cold winter of Internet capital in the next few years, cost control is extremely important for Internet companies that want to survive.
Moreover, compared with Amazon at this time, Yahoo, which already has large data centers around the world, undoubtedly has an incomparable advantage.
Because in the early stage of cloud computing promotion, Yahoo doesn’t even need to spend a huge amount of money to build a new data center for cloud computing business, it only needs to use Yahoo’s own redundant computing and storage resources to build a cloud computing framework, which can also be achieved on the other hand Full utilization of Yahoo data centers.
In addition to search engine, social network and cloud computing, although Yahoo will continue to pay enough attention to businesses such as portal websites, e-mail, and instant messaging, in fact, these businesses will gradually tend to be more peripheral than Yahoo's core business. Later, the experience of Internet companies in both the East and the West has proved that these businesses can bring huge users to the company, but it is difficult to generate too much direct profit.
As for the Yahoo Music Store, Eric has always regarded it as a supporting service for the Fireflyer player.
Of course, among all mainstream Internet businesses, online games are definitely the most important part. However, at this meeting, Eric rejected the proposal of the management to focus on the development of online games in the next step.
"Actually, I am also very optimistic about the online game business," Eric followed up after hearing Ian Grenier turn the topic to this aspect: "However, judging from the experience of testing water in recent years, whether it is North America, Whether in Europe or Japan, players still prefer console games. Of course, just like the story about going to Africa to sell shoes, the number of users of online games is much lower than that of console games, which means huge business opportunities. However, the game business is actually Similar to movies, as a creative industry, its uncertainty is very large. It is impossible for you to recruit a group of programmers casually and make a successful online game. In comparison, cloud computing can completely Developed into a 'just-needed' service. Moreover, since Yahoo is positioned as a technology-based company, we must also make due trade-offs among various aspects."
Speaking of which, among the online games in memory, the only one that can arouse Eric's interest is Blizzard's "World of Warcraft". It's just that because I haven't paid much attention to the game industry, by the time Eric found out by accident, Blizzard had already become Vivendi's pocket.
Fortunately, there are still five years before the release of Warcraft.
If Vivendi buys Seagram according to the previous development route, it will definitely be in trouble in the next few years due to excessive expansion and the drag of the entertainment industry. At that time, Firefly will have the opportunity to buy Blizzard.
However, even if he could rely on Yahoo's Internet resources to further promote "World of Warcraft" in the future, Eric did not let Yahoo be distracted from making online games alone.
After all, the national conditions are different. Until many years later, the mainstream of the game industry in Western countries is still console games, and Eric has not discovered that any Internet giant in the West has risen by relying on online games. Since this is not the correct direction of development, Eric will not let Yahoo waste time exploring in this area.