Is the CEO of Yahoo making more promises she can’t keep?

It wouldn’t be fair to say that Yahoo is dying, but things aren’t looking too good. The company’s days as an Internet colossus are long gone, and despite assurances that Marissa Mayer’s ascent to CEO would turn the company around, it’s been three years and we still haven’t seen that turnaround. Although Mayer remains confident that the company is on track to reclaim its greatness, many people are starting to lose faith. 

Marissa Mayer claimed on Tuesday that she is in the process of returning “an iconic company to greatness,” but the company’s latest earnings results don’t quite support the rhetoric. Yahoo posted earnings of $0.15 per share on revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, falling short of Wall Street’s anemic estimates for earnings of $0.18 per share on revenue of $1.05 billion. To put that in context: Yahoo revenue fell by about 4% year-over-year and its net earnings fell from $312 million a year earlier to just $21 million this quarter. That’s a loss of about 93%, as the company spends more on operations and acquiring traffic. The Internet company did see gains in its search volume, thanks to a recent deal with Mozilla, as well as 61% growth year-over-year in mobile revenue and climbing to more than 600 million monthly active users on mobile, which is a testament to Mayer’s focus on mobile through dozens of acquisitions. However, Yahoo’s display advertising business continues to languish. Its display ad revenue, minus the cost of traffic acquisition, fell 7% to $381 million for the first quarter.