By Michael Liedtke, Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer tried to hit all the upbeat notes during an annual shareholders meeting as the company considers selling its slumping internet operations.
The 45-minute gathering Thursday was a routine affair that provided no insight into whether Yahoo's board is leaning toward a sale after four months of wrangling, or will entrust the beleaguered Mayer to engineer a long-promised turnaround.
Mayer told the small turnout of shareholders that Yahoo "is making great progress on our process" without specifying when a decision might be made. Most analysts expect Yahoo to make a choice this summer.
If Yahoo sells, Mayer will probably lose her job after four years as CEO and walk away with a $55 million severance package. Activist shareholder Starboard Value had threatened to lead a mutiny aimed at ousting Mayer until Yahoo agreed two months ago to give the fund four seats on its 11-member board.
Mayer, 41, defended her efforts to broaden Yahoo's audience and sell more advertising by focusing more on mobile apps and adding hundreds of other features to its array of digital services during her nearly four-year tenure.
"We are proud of our achievements overall in our products," she said.
Most of those products are now on the auction block. Various media outlets have reported that Yahoo has received offers exceeding $3 billion for a portfolio of digital services that includes the company's email, news, sports and finance sections.
The bidders include Verizon Communications, a group led by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, and various private equity firms that specialize in buying struggling companies at discount prices.
Yahoo has steadfastly refused to provide any updates on its deliberations since its board hired investment bankers and other advisers to round up prospective buyers four months ago. Mayer told shareholders Thursday that she has been encouraged by the level of interest in Yahoo's internet business, though most analysts initially thought the company would fetch more than the $4.4 billion that Verizon paid for AOL last year.
The company restricted attendance to Thursday's meeting in Santa Clara, California, to shareholders and their appointed representatives, forcing The Associated Press and other media to watch the proceedings on a webcast. Yahoo also recently began soliciting bidders for a package of about 4,000 technology patents, representing most of its intellectual property.
Yahoo's auction stems from the company's inability to boost its revenue during the past eight years even though advertisers have been steadily increasing the amount of money on digital marketing. Its revenue has fallen from $5.1 billion in 2008 to $4.1 billion last year, with another decline of as much as 17 percent to $3.4 billion projected for this year. Most of Yahoo's current market value of $35 billion is locked up in stakes that it holds into China's e-commerce leader, Alibaba Group, and Yahoo Japan.
In a tacit acknowledgement that her previous turnaround plans had gone awry, Mayer pivoted at the beginning of the year and started to close Yahoo's least profitable services, including a video operation and digital magazines hatched during her reign.
Mayer is also laying off 15 percent of Yahoo's workforce to whittle the payroll to 9,000 employees and trying to pull off a spin-off that would put the internet operations into a separate company. Yahoo Inc. would then become a holding company for Alibaba Group, and Yahoo Japan.
"We need to make sure every product counts and every market matters," Mayer told shareholders Thursday.
Yahoo's stock ended Thursday up 70 cents, or almost 2 percent, at $37.56. It is up almost 13 percent in 2016.
Nintendo chief insists the Switch momentum will keep going, even after its successor
Japanese video game maker Nintendo's chief said Wednesday that Switch console sales were still going strong, while he promised its successor is coming.
"The momentum of the Nintendo Switch hasn't stopped," company president Shuntaro Furukawa told reporters.
His comments come a day after Nintendo reported a 60% drop in its fiscal first half profit, largely because of declining sales of the Switch, which now is in its eighth year, as well as Switch games.
Furukawa did not give details on the greatly anticipated upcoming machine but stressed all current game software will be playable on the next Switch.
People may want to keep playing the offerings from the rich lineup already on sale, as well as the games they own, he added, insisting the Kyoto-based maker behind the Super Mario franchise wasn't hemmed in by the idea of a console's "life cycle."
Nintendo is investing in both hardware and software development research, as well as movies, merchandising, amusement parks and music, Furukawa said.
Another Mario movie is set to be released in April 2026, a sequel to last year's hit film, and a Zelda movie is also being planned, although a date wasn't given. Movies boost game and machine sales, and the absence of a movie this year was one reason sales faltered, according to Nintendo.
Theme park Super Nintendo World is opening in Orlando next year, and another is set to open in Singapore. They're already open in Japan and Los Angeles.
Official stores also help boost Nintendo fans, and a new one is opening in San Francisco next year. Nintendo stores are already open in New York, Osaka, Tokyo and Kyoto, in addition to the temporary pop-ups in various cities.
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