Yellow Pages records lower digital and print revenues

The quarter and the fiscal year saw declines across the board, but CEO David Eckert says the company's recent layoffs will help stabilize things.

Yellow Pages’ fiscal year has officially concluded and the advertising and classifieds company has once again recorded decreased revenues and fewer customers.

The company’s revenues reached $183.76 million in the fourth quarter, down from $202.72 million in Q4 2016. Yearly revenue reached $745.85 million, down from $817.98 million.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $46.91 million (a 25% margin), down from $57.42 million. Annual adjusted EBITDA was $183.99 million (a 24.7% margin) down from $235.19 million.

At year-end, YP’s customer count was 229,000, down from 241,500 at year-end 2016.

Total visits to the Yellow Pages’ digital network of properties grew 10% year-over-year for the quarter, up to 164 million. Despite that increased digital traffic, however, revenues from the digital still decreased year-over-year, hitting $137 million for the quarter (down 4.3%). Across all of 2017, digital revenue decreased only 2.3% versus last year to $543 million.

The company said digital revenues now account for 74.6% of its total revenues.

Print revenue had a sharper decline. In Q4, it dropped 21.6% year-over-year to $46.7 million. Print revenue for the full year dropped 22.6% overall to $202.9 million.

These results were for the three-month period ended Dec. 31 and do not reflect the Yellow Pages’ recent 500 layoffs.

Yellow Pages president and CEO David Eckert said the company is “demonstrating commitment to improving [its] financial performance.” He noted that Yellow Pages achieved its 2017 guidance, and added that the recent layoffs are a “first significant step” in aligning spending with revenue.

“Our objective is to put declining profitability and write-downs behind us and move forward with an improved balance sheet,” he said.