Just 11 days into 2016, it has already been a busy period for tech news — and that’s about to ramp up further.
This Thursday is the official kickoff of the tech earnings season, with Intel scheduled to report financial results. The chip maker’s report will be followed by those from other tech giants — Apple, Facebook and Microsoft among them — over the next few weeks.
The results will be closely scrutinized. For Apple and Amazon, the earnings will reflect the demand they saw over the crucial holiday sales quarter. Any positive news will likely send the companies’ stocks up after they tumbled last week in the first trading week of the year. And some of the financial results will be used as report cards on turnarounds — yes, Jack Dorsey at Twitter and Satya Nadella at Microsoft, that means you.
Perhaps the most closely watched earnings this time around will be Yahoo — and it won’t just be for the numbers. Last year, Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, announced a plan to spin off the Internet portal’s core business after facing pressure from activist investors. At the time, Ms. Mayer promised to reveal more details about the plan during the company’s next earnings report.
Among the next steps may be layoffs, writes Vindu Goel. Morale among employees at the company has sunk and there is plenty of churn in the work force. To stem the tide of departures, Ms. Mayer is having to offer retention bonuses, writes Mr. Goel. So Yahoo’s earnings report will have implications for more than just investors in the onetime Silicon Valley web pioneer.