Yahoo! Reports Profitable First Quarter Results

Company Posts $9.5 Million in Revenues and $210,000 in Net Income

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- April 9, 1997 --



Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today reported revenues totaling $9,515,000 for the first quarter ended March 31, 1997 compared to revenues of $1,733,000 for the first quarter in fiscal year 1996. Net income for the first quarter was $210,000 or $0.01 per share, compared to net income of $81,000 or $0.00 per share for the comparable period in the previous year.

Yahoo! also announced its traffic grew to an average of more than 30 million page views per day during the month of March 1997, a 50 percent increase over the 20 million page views per day average reported in December 1996. Yahoo! Japan, which is included in the above page view totals, increased to more than two million page views per day in March 1997. A page view is defined as one electronic page of information displayed in response to a user request. According to PC Meter, Yahoo! was ranked the No. 1 search and navigational site on the Web for the fifth consecutive quarter, with an overall audience reach of 37.8 percent in February. In addition, Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Finance were ranked the No. 1 sources of up-to-the-minute general news and financial information on the Web according to recent analysis by PC Meter.

"We are pleased with the increased use of our services as measured in page views, which has grown five fold from a year ago," said Tim Koogle, Yahoo!'s president and chief executive officer. "The continued traffic growth during business and leisure hours across our family of media properties reconfirms that we are providing our users with the information and services they desire, thus delivering our advertisers with a large and growing audience. We are focusing on building Yahoo! services and the Yahoo! brand on a global basis and will continue to place a higher priority on such investments rather than on delivering short-term profits. These upfront investments are key to maintaining our leadership position in a very competitive market."

Yahoo! continued to increase its advertiser base in the first quarter, adding several well known national brands to its client list. IBM Corporation, one of the top three Web advertisers, has selected the Yahoo! Network to launch a global Internet advertising program. The ad program, which begins this month and runs through year end, will leverage Yahoo!'s complete network of properties, locally and internationally, to promote IBM in technology and Internet-related content areas. Yahoo!'s growing list of new advertisers included several major accounts in the quarter, such as Avon, Buick, Condenet, Domino's Pizza, Hitachi, Johnson & Johnson, Lufthansa, Novell, Oldsmobile, Prodigy, Spiegel, and UPS.

During the quarter, Yahoo! expanded its distribution to now include Netscape Guide by Yahoo!, which is scheduled to be launched in the second quarter. Under its agreement with Netscape Communications Corporation, Yahoo! will program, produce, operate, and run ad sales for this new, high-profile Internet navigation service. The personalized guide, which is designed to provide users with a central comprehensive source of sites, news, and other valuable services on the Web, leverages Yahoo!'s existing business, while expanding the company's potential distribution, sales, and advertising revenue opportunities. Yahoo! will also operate and manage What's New, What's Cool, People, and Yellow Pages on Netscape's Internet site.

The company also added several new services in the first quarter. Yahoo! Chat, a free platform available to all Internet users, enables communication among Yahoo! users worldwide. Yahoo! Classifieds is a nationwide extension of classifieds services already popular on Yahoo!'s metro sites and features listings for employment, autos, real estate, rentals, computers, pets, personals, and miscellaneous merchandise. Yahoo! also added The Motley Fool's popular personal investing information and educational service to Yahoo! Finance, which provides portfolio management, charting, company profiles, news, and stock quotes. Yahoo! and Wire Networks Inc., producers of Women's Wire, launched Beatrice's Web Guide, a topical interactive site designed to deliver reviews and tips about the best Web sites for women.

Yahoo! continued expanding its geographical programming through local, regional, and national properties. The company launched Yahoo! Seattle, Yahoo! Dallas, and Yahoo! Austin during the quarter and now serves 10 of the largest markets in the United States in addition to Get Local, which reaches more than 30,000 cities. These sites combine local content, news, and entertainment programming, and free communication services, including bulletin boards, classifieds, yellow pages, and interactive maps. Yahoo! also continues to offer its services internationally in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany and announced several new European advertisers in the first quarter, including British Airways, British Sky Broadcasting, Guinness, Nescafe, Opel, and Siemens.

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is an Internet media company that offers a network of globally-branded properties, specialty programming, and aggregated content distributed primarily on the Web serving business professionals and consumers. As the first online navigational guide to the Web, www.yahoo.com is the single largest guide in terms of traffic, advertising, and household reach, and is one of the most recognized brands associated with the Internet. Yahoo! Inc. continues to develop a family of community services, including Yahoo! Chat, Classifieds, and Yellow Pages, along with targeted Internet guides for geographcic audiences (Yahoo! Japan, UK & Ireland, France, Germany, Canada, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, Austin, Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta); shared-interest audiences (Yahoo! Internet Life magazine and website, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News and unfURLed, MTV/Yahoo!'s online music guide); and demographic audiences (Yahooligans!, a Web guide for kids; and Beatrice's Web Guide for women). Yahoo! Inc. is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.yahoo.com.

This announcement contains forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the company's ability to continue to increase its advertiser and user base, to successfully introduce new local and international media properties, and to sustain profitability in future periods. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted and reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the company's limited operating history, the increasingly competitive environment for the company's services and advertising sales, the early stage of the Web as an advertising medium, and the company's dependence on advertising revenues and third parties for sales, technology, content and distribution. More information about potential factors which could affect the company's financial results is included in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 1996, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Click for Yahoo! Inc. Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets
Click for Yahoo! Inc. Condensed Consolidated Income Statements

Beatrice's Web Guide is a trademark of Yahoo! Inc. and Wire Networks, Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.