Yahoo: Never mind the bollocks, here’s the numbers

Yahoo continues to make its case for why it shouldn’t be bought by Microsoft (our coverage). On Tuesday the company unveiled numbers suggesting a very rosy outlook for the company’s financials between now and 2010.

Specifically, the company projects to just about double operating cash flow in the next three years, from $1.9 billion to $3.7 billion. While Yahoo expects only to meet Wall Street expectations this year, in 2009 and 2010, the company’s projections have it truly excelling.

Of course, the keyword is “projections”. No matter how many purple bar graphs and pie charts Yahoo puts in a presentation, the numbers are hollow until the company proves somehow that it can actually meet them. Having an on-track Q1 is nice given that some where expecting a disaster, but maintaining the status quo is unlikely to stop a Microsoft takeover.

Yahoo was wise to include one slide (seen below) in its presentation, worldwide traffic rankings across key areas. People often downplay the fact Yahoo still has the #1 or #2 position in terms of global unique visitors for its landing page, personal homepages, email, search and mobile. With that kind of resume up on screen, things might look good to anyone.

Yahoo was also smart to emphasize growth in the Asian market. China, in particular, still has less than one sixth of its population online according to Bloomberg, and Yahoo has a good presence there. Yahoo’s mobile strength (they are the #1 mobile site) should also help in the Asian markets.

[title of the story comes from the classic Sex Pistols album]