{"id":16118,"date":"2014-02-09T10:04:39","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T14:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=16118"},"modified":"2014-02-09T10:23:11","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T14:23:11","slug":"yelp-2013-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/09\/yelp-2013-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Yelp&#8217;s 2013 Results and the Headlines that Weren&#8217;t"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yelp announced their 2013 &#8220;earnings&#8221; last week. I am continually shocked by the rosy headlines and the lack of due diligence often present in the reporting.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the more egregious examples of uncritical coverage:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/re.zepteo.com\/02-47231-2096584-14061148-35849044-180\">Yelp Pushes Through The Controversies With Big Growth And A 5-Star Quarter<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=newssearch&amp;cd=3&amp;ved=0CCsQ-AsoATAC&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fvator.tv%2Fnews%2F2014-02-06-yelp-shares-jump-175-on-solid-q4-results&amp;ei=PoX3Uo_EJ8aIyAHZ5YGgBg&amp;usg=AFQjCNE_CMWOVgezbf_hro9eLa60tKeIIg&amp;sig2=K1_6dokcd4IkApGVYVDedw&amp;bvm=bv.60983673,d.aWc\">Yelp\u00a0shares jump 17.5% on solid Q4\u00a0results<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailyfinance.com\/2014\/02\/08\/management-says-yelp-is-just-getting-started\/\">Management Says\u00a0Yelp\u00a0Is Just Getting Started<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rttnews.com\/2264445\/yelp-shares-surge-7-on-rosy-outlook-q4-loss-narrows.aspx\">Yelp\u00a0Shares Surge 7% On Rosy Outlook, Q4 Loss Narrows<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestreet.com\/story\/12311817\/1\/yelp-shares-climb-on-strong-q4-revenue-guidance.html\">Yelp\u00a0Shares Climb on Strong Q4 Revenue, Guidance<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some were more neutral but still carried an uncritical tone or hints of positive results.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/searchengineland.com\/yelp-183507\">Yelp\u00a0Reports $233 Million In Revenue For\u00a02013, Up 69 Percent<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/streetfightmag.com\/2014\/02\/05\/in-yelp-earnings-no-sign-of-the-mobile-gap\/\">In\u00a0Yelp\u00a0Earnings, No Sign of the &#8216;Mobile Gap&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Few if <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=yelp+2013+results&amp;client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;biw=1107&amp;bih=737&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=eIb3Uv_QMYSNygG39oH4BQ&amp;ved=0CBsQpwUoBTge&amp;source=lnt&amp;tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A2%2F5%2F2014%2Ccd_max%3A2%2F8%2F2014&amp;tbm=nws\">any of the headlines<\/a> that I found were critical with but one exception.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a chart showing Yelps Revenue Growth compared to Expenses over the past 5 years. I am having <a href=\"http:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/article\/1784422-will-yelp-ever-be-profitable\">trouble seeing <\/a>a reason for optimism. This has been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/this-chart-explains-why-yelp-may-never-make-a-profit-2011-11\">the same story<\/a> for many years. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/investing\/stock\/yelp\/financials\">See<\/a> for yourself.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/yelp-rev-v-ex-v1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-16120\" alt=\"yelp-rev-v-ex-v1\" src=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/yelp-rev-v-ex-v1-520x333.png\" width=\"520\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/yelp-rev-v-ex-v1-520x333.png 520w, https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/yelp-rev-v-ex-v1-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/yelp-rev-v-ex-v1-1024x655.png 1024w, https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/yelp-rev-v-ex-v1.png 1196w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I would suggest that the headlines should have been:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Yelp Reports 5th Consecutive Annual Loss<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Yelp reports 20th Sequential Unprofitable Quarter<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Yelp, No Profits in Sight as Expenses Rise as Quickly as Income<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I think they all must have failed to read Yelp&#8217;s forward looking statement buried at the bottom (embarrassingly formatted exactly as on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp-ir.com\/phoenix.zhtml?c=250809&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=1897330&amp;highlight\">report<\/a>).<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nFactors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: the Company&#8217;s short operating history in an evolving industry; the Company&#8217;s ability to generate sufficient revenue to achieve or maintain profitability, particularly in light of its significant ongoing sales and marketing expenses; the Company&#8217;s ability to successfully manage acquisitions of new businesses, solutions or technologies, including Qype and SeatMe, and to integrate those businesses, solutions or technologies; the Company&#8217;s reliance on traffic to its website from search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!; the Company&#8217;s ability to generate and maintain sufficient high quality content from its users; maintaining a strong brand and managing negative publicity that may arise; maintaining and expanding the Company&#8217;s base of advertisers; changes in political, business and economic conditions, including any European or general economic downturn or crisis and any conditions that affect ecommerce growth; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; the Company&#8217;s ability to deal with the increasingly competitive local search environment; the Company&#8217;s need and ability to manage other regulatory, tax and litigation risks as its services are offered in more jurisdictions and applicable laws become more restrictive; the competitive and regulatory environment while the Company continues to expand geographically and introduce new products and as new laws and regulations related to Internet companies come into effect; the Company&#8217;s ability to timely upgrade and develop its systems, infrastructure and customer service capabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yelp announced their 2013 &#8220;earnings&#8221; last week. I am continually shocked by the rosy headlines and the lack of due diligence often present in the reporting. Some of the more egregious examples of uncritical coverage: Yelp Pushes Through The Controversies With Big Growth And A 5-Star Quarter Yelp\u00a0shares jump 17.5% on solid Q4\u00a0results Management Says\u00a0Yelp\u00a0Is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16118"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16128,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16118\/revisions\/16128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}