Yahoo is telling potential buyers that it expects to lose another 15% in revenue this year
The report, citing a sale "book" that was handed out to potential Yahoo buyers, says Yahoo's revenue - excluding the cost to acquire traffic - is expected to be $3.5 billion in 2016, a 15% drop from the $4.1 billion it saw in 2015, and nearly $1 billion less than the $4.4 billion it recorded in 2014.
Earnings before depreciation, taxes, and amortization, an important metric to track profitability, is forecast to drop to $750 million in 2016, from $952 million the previous year, according to Recode.
The report said a big part of the loss is due to some of the fees that will cancel out from its Asian assets this year. Yahoo used to make hundreds of millions of dollars from its partnership with Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.
On top of that, Yahoo's traffic acquisition cost, which is the fee paid out to partners for helping draw more users to Yahoo's search, continues to soar, climbing to over $1 billion this year, according to the report. TAC was close to $220 million just two years ago, it said.
Swisher says some of the potential buyers who received the sales "book" are frustrated because it makes it extremely difficult to track exactly which parts of Yahoo is making money or not. Plus, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's now trying to sell her vision for a new voice-activated search technology, similar to Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, which is confusing given the high cost it typically takes to build such technology.
Yahoo is currently in the process of trying to sell its core internet business. According to the WSJ, Yahoo asked potential buyers to make their bids by April 11. Some of the most frequently mentioned potential buyers are big communications companies like Verizon and AT&T, and private-equity firms like TPG and KKR.
Read Recode's full report here>>