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Yahoo Japan Sets New Highs in FY 2005 Revenue, Net Profit

Posted on: Thursday, 20 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Apr. 20--TOKYO -- Yahoo Japan Corp. said Thursday it set new highs in both group operating revenues and net profit in fiscal 2005 thanks to increased advertising and other income stemming from expanding use of the Internet.

The leading Internet service company booked a net profit of 47.09 billion yen in the year to March 31, up 28.9 percent from the previous year, on a 47.5 percent rise in operating revenues to 173.70 billion yen.

Yahoo Japan's Net advertising revenues saw an all-time high of 68.4 billion yen, up 75.7 percent, at a time when newspapers and other conventional media are struggling to secure advertisements.

Pretax profit grew 32.5 percent to 79.87 billion yen.

"Understanding is growing among sponsors that the Internet, which has been enjoying a rise in users, can be used as one of the mass media," said Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue at a news conference.

Quoting government data, Yahoo Japan, which is owned 41.3 percent by Softbank Corp., said the Internet is now regularly used by 62.3 percent of the nation's population.

The daily page-view number via the "Yahoo! Japan" portal site has topped 1.2 billion, the company added.

By segment, the listing division, which collects fees from companies that offer information on the portal, accounted for 28.5 percent of the total operating revenues in the just-ended fiscal year.

Revenues from the auction division contributed 20.7 percent of revenues, while those from the common company-wide business division, including fees for ads on the top page of the Yahoo! Japan portal, accounted for 16.9 percent.

Despite the rosy financial figures, Inoue said the growth rate of net profit slowed down for the reporting year partly because of a sharp increase in employment and a rise in capital spending to cope with the growing number of Net users.

Per-share net profit fell to 1,536.40 yen from 4,766.03 yen following a series of stock splits.

Yahoo Japan plans to pay a dividend of 156 yen per share for fiscal 2005, down from the previous year's 484 yen as a result of the stock splits.

Inoue said the company will seek comparable results in fiscal 2006 to March 31, 2007, citing further possible expansion of advertisement, shopping and auction businesses.

For the April-June first quarter of fiscal 2006, Yahoo Japan expects a net profit of 12.95 billion to 14.5 billion yen and a pretax profit of 22.6 billion to 25.25 billion yen on revenues of 50 billion to 53.4 billion yen.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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