Yahoo Japan Corp. said Friday its group net profit hit a record 13.2 billion yen, up 28.1 percent, on sales of 49.3 billion yen in the April-June quarter thanks to strong advertising sales.
The Internet portal operator also reported a record high operating profit of 24 billion yen, up 30.3 percent, and a pretax profit of 22.9 billion yen, up 28.8 percent.
Despite the brisk figures, Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue said sales in the first three months of the fiscal year failed to reach the earlier forecast 50 billion yen to 53.4 billion yen.
"Some of our large-scale customers did not put advertisement on our Web site because they were ordered to suspend their operations," Inoue told a news conference.
Although he did not provide further details on the companies, citing privacy reasons, Inoue appeared to be referring to such firms as consumer lender Aiful Corp. and Sompo Japan Insurance Inc., two of several big companies the Financial Services Agency recently has hit with business suspension orders for illegal sales practices.
Still, revenue form advertising was up 50.8 percent from the prior year to 21.2 billion yen.