Yahoo Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a new homepage and posted a decrease of quarterly sales which met expectations. A Yahoo! sign is seen in New York's Times Square November 18, 2008.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
In the quarter ended on June 30, the Internet company's revenues were 1.57 billion U.S. dollars, down 13 percent from the same period last year.
Excluding fees passed on to partner sites, revenues were 1.14 billion dollars, in line with analysts' estimates though lower than 1.35 billion dollars in the year-ago quarter.
Yahoo's net income in the second three months this year was 141million dollars, an increase of about eight percent from 131 million dollars a year earlier. Excluding some expenses, earnings per share was 16 cents, the same as last year.
"I'm pleased with our results this past quarter. We established a clear, simple vision to be the center of people's lives online, and we're backing that vision with important initiatives to create 'wow' experiences for our users," Carol Bartz, Yahoo's chief executive officer (CEO), said in a statement.
"We're confident that this vision will put us on the right path to growth and profitability long term," she added.
Yahoo also announced that its redesigned homepage is available to users in the United States starting from Tuesday and will be rolled out in France, India and Britain over the coming week.
The new homepage "brings together the best of the Web with the best of Yahoo in a single destination across both PC and mobile screens," Yahoo said in a press release.
The company noted that the revamp represents the most significant change to the Yahoo homepage since its inception.
"Our new homepage is a perfect example of our efforts to create innovative products aimed at increasing user engagement while offering the most compelling advertising proposition in the industry," Yahoo CEO Bartz said.
Thứ Ba, 21 tháng 7, 2009
Yahoo reports sales drop, revamps homepage
Thứ Ba, 17 tháng 3, 2009
Possible impacts of the issuance of US$ bonds
He said:
Dr Vu Thanh Tu Anh, Research Director of Fulbright Economics Teaching Programme
With the current budget deficit, the government wanted to issue bonds to get money for state spending. However, the latest bond issuances all failed
The main reason for the failure was unattractive interest rates, which proved to be much lower than the levels expected by investors. Then the government thought of issuing bonds in dollars as it unsuccessfully issued bonds in VND.
The
First, the issuance could influence the interest rates on the market. If the gap between the VND and US$ interest rates is as high as 4%, while the inflation rate is expected to be 6-7% this year, people will convert VND into US$ to purchase bonds if the bond interest rates are high enough.
Second, the issuance could cause dollarisation. The dollarisation level now in
If so, we would find it difficult to apply flexible monetary policies, simply because we used a lot of dollars.
Third, this could impact the exchange rate. If people convert VND into dollars, the dollar will appreciate.
The dollar appreciation will make import-export companies and companies which use dollars, suffer. It is clear that this will have very big impacts on
What is your comment about the 4% interest rate subsidy programme which is being implemented?
The policy has been implemented by many countries in the world, and many of them have not been successful with the policy. One of the reasons is failure to control loans.
In
This means that there have been signs of debt turnover (getting new loans to pay old debts). Businesses have every reason to do that. The lending interest rate was 21% per annum last year, while the rate is 6% now.
Other problems are the terms of loans and the list of those eligible for the programme. Two groups of businesses have been added to the list of those eligible for the programme, mining and finance companies.
Under the current regulations, companies can only borrow capital under the interest rate subsidy programme to use as short-term working capital. What could be the ‘working capital’ for finance companies?
I also cannot understand why we need to support mining companies.
Are businesses worried that the policies on supporting exports will violate WTO commitments?
It is really a complicated problem. The government needs to be very cautious with any support policies at this moment, as all countries in the world have strengthened trade preventive measures on imports.
Supporting exports proves to be the thing that needs to be done. But it is still necessary to consider which measures to apply. Supporting enterprises in re-training labour, supporting in trade promotion and assisting in research and development prove to be effective ways of supporting businesses, which in no way violate WTO commitments.
As export markets have narrowed, businesses have focused on the domestic market. Do you think that their plan to focus on the domestic market will be feasible in the current conditions?
It is not so easy to return to the domestic market in the short term. A lot of policies have been designed to encourage exports and cater to foreign enterprises rather than domestic ones. A lot of products have been designed to fit export markets rather than the domestic market, from design, distribution and marketing method.
However, in the long term, businesses still need to target the domestic market.
VietNamNet/TBKTVN
Thứ Bảy, 14 tháng 3, 2009
Mobile service providers fret over stricter regulations
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Ministerial inspectors submitted the proposal to the Ministry of Information and Communications after an inspection last year found a number of mobile service retailers violating regulations.
The inspection, which investigated 328 service retailers in five provinces, found more than half of them flouting registration rules.
Chief inspector Nguyen Thanh Hai said many retailers had activated prepaid SIM cards to collect commissions from service providers before actually selling the cards to customers.
According to Hai, the inspectors proposed that the ministry ban such commissions from service providers to retailers.
They also suggested that providers be prohibited from offering promotional discounts or free minutes to customers until they had put money into their account at least three times.
The ban was suggested as many users take advantage of new customer promotions by simply buying new numbers rather than re-filling their accounts.
He also said the ministry should ban flexible SIM cards, which allow retailers to register subscriber information, top off accounts and issue new SIM cards without ever consulting the providers. The cards were issued by providers in a bid to expand retail networks.
The inspectors also proposed that the ministry regulate promotion campaigns and don’t allow discounts to get too big.
They also suggested retailers and service providers stop supplying services to prepaid subscribers that register incorrect information.
But they gave no details on how this could be accomplished.
Providers protest
Deputy director of Viettel Telecom, Bui Quang Tuyen, said a ban on flexible SIM cards would hurt retailers.
A MobiFone official opposed the ban on new customer promotions.
“These promotions have nothing to do with the management of prepaid subscribers,” he said.
Pham Ngoc Tu, deputy sale manager of VinaPhone, said the ministry should limit the number of mobile numbers per person.
But Tuyen said it would be difficult to regulate such limits as “the data from different mobile phone networks are not connected, it would be impossible to tell if new subscribers were already subscribers at other networks.”
Market messiness
Regulating and limiting promotion campaigns could hurt consumers by making mobile service more expensive, said a telecommunications expert.
“It would reduce demand,” he said. “The ministry should consider the issue carefully because consumer rights may be at issue here.”
In the wake of the proposed tightening of regulations, providers MobiFone and Viettel have announced a reduction in their promotional rates for prepaid SIM cards.
MobiFone said they would now only offer VND55,000 (US$3.15) in free minutes for each VND65,000 SIM card beginning March 13. The previous promotional rate was VND95,000 ($5.44).
Meanwhile, Viettel said it will issue VND65,000 in free time instead of VND95,000 per VND65,000 SIM Card beginning March 15.
Two cell-phone users in Hanoi. Mobile phone service providers have said a proposal to tighten the management of prepaid accounts could hurt their business.
Reported by Hoang Ly – Truong Son
Thứ Tư, 11 tháng 3, 2009
Online advertising: Big players keep eyes on small market
| Online advertising: Big players keep eyes on small market | ||
| 17:41' 11/03/2009 (GMT+7) | ||
General Director of Yahoo! Indochina Vu Minh Tri.
Vietnam’s online advertising market too small
The value of the online advertising market in Vietnam is very modest. However, there are big gaps between the figures released by three market research companies. According to Tri, the three sums released were $2.3 million, $4 million and $8 million.
“Vietnam’s online advertising market is too small. Just a few advertising companies purchase information so market research companies didn’t carefully survey this market,” Tri explained about the difference of figures.
The total market value of the Vietnamese advertising market is around US$ 500 million. Despite the difference of data, the online advertising market still accounts for a very small piece in the advertising “cake”.
Yahoo! Southeast Asia combined with AC Nielsen to conduct a comprehensive research study of the online industry last December. According to this research work, companies will spend around $8 million for online advertising activities by 2010, bringing the current rate of online advertising in the advertising market from 0.6% to 1.5%.
Small piece, but important
Online advertising in Vietnam has been focused on online newspapers, namely VNExpress, VietNamNet, Dan Tri and some other websites.
In the last two years, Yahoo! Southeast Asia has tried to expand its coverage in this market through a long-term strategy.
Since it opened a representative office in Vietnam, Yahoo! has appointed four agents to sell online advertisements. It recently established a company in Vietnam and its sales strategy also changed, from Yahoo! to its agents and to clients.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese organisations that want to advertise on Google have to go through unofficial means, meaning that Vietnam can’t collect tax. Meanwhile, revenue from advertisements through search engines is the most important part in online advertising.
Local companies such as FPT, VC Corp, and Vinagame are quietly preparing technology and diversified service packages to explore this market. In this context, when companies are cutting spending on advertisements, online advertising is a way to cut expenses.
Advertising via mobile phones is a promising service but it hasn’t developed in Vietnam. In August 2008, the Chairman of Jatis Mobile from Indonesia came to Vietnam to seek partners to develop this service.
Vu Minh Tri said Yahoo is also interested in this field and it will promote this business, based on its One Search service in cooperation with MobiFone.
VietNamNet/LD |
Thứ Hai, 23 tháng 2, 2009
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