Yahoo is seriously downsizing. After several turbulent years, marked by takeovers and above all a massive piracy which had affected 3 billion accounts in 2013, the former American Web giant has decided to cut heavily in its workforce, announcing the dismissal of more than 20% of its lifeblood, i.e. nearly 1,600 employees.
This payroll reduction is part of a restructuring of the company’s advertising division. Thus, 50% of the workforce of the adtech division of Yahoo will be thanked by the end of the year. In the coming months, the company will also shut down its SSP platform (supply-side platform), which allows website publishers to manage their advertising inventory, as well as the Gemini native advertising platform.
Changes to create “a better business plan”
On the other hand, Yahoo wants to focus on its DSP business (demand side platform), which helps advertisers automate the management of their ad inventory. As part of this, the advertising division will be renamed Yahoo Advertising. This will notably bring together the sales teams of Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Finance.
“These changes announced today are entirely in the context of creating a better business plan for this division going forward”assured the CEO of Yahoo, Jim Lanzone, in an interview with Bloomberg. “We would have made these changes even at the height of the market”he added, specifying that the company was “very profitable”.