Yahoo's new CEO lays out strategy for smaller, more focused company

18.04.2012
Yahoo plans to cut about 50 properties and refocus on its core business, CEO Scott Thompson said in an earnings call on Tuesday.

In Thompson's first earnings call that reflected a full quarter of his leadership, he outlined a six-point plan to shrink Yahoo down to a smaller, more profitable business. The call followed the company's that it saw increased profits, but its total revenue grew by just 1 percent.

Thompson said he plans to halt initiatives "including platforms for outside publishers" and theoretical research.

Moving forward, Yahoo will focus on its "core media, connections and commerce businesses," Thompson said. He identified "news, finance, sports, entertainment, mail and a handful of others" as the properties that bring in the most revenue and will continue to take the front seat.

"Yahoo has been doing way too much for too long, and it was only doing a few things really well," Thompson said. He said the company needed to "get clear on our core business, dedicate some of our best people and the most resources there and put our customers first."

The company will also look to cut costs by improving its cloud infrastructure and other ways to make "each of our properties more scalable and nimble and flexible and therefore less costly and time-consuming to run," he said.