Yehey! aims to double revenues, may go public this year

MANILA, Philippines - Web portal Yehey! Corp. is bullish about doubling revenues this year amid an economic crisis that threatens most companies’ profits. The company is beefing up its marketing campaign instead of depending solely on online advertisements, Yehey! President and Chief Executive Officer Donald Lim said in an interview. "We intend to double sales by opening more revenue streams. We are more of an agency already that is doing a lot of online marketing for Web sites and companies," he pointed out. Among the strategies adopted by the company that used to be mainly a local Web search engine similar to Yahoo! is reselling products for major Web sites and on-line selling for local and international companies. Yehey! manages the search engine yehey.com and other Web sites, and creates online marketing campaigns for corporate clients. It also earns from online ads. He said profits last year were minimal because they had to beef up operations by increasing manpower and expanding their office. "Before we just sold ads. Now we are doing the Web sites of some of the big companies," Mr. Lim said. Yehey! is targeting P140 million in revenues this year. Mr. Lim said he was confident that the company could meet its revenue target since it already controls a huge chunk of the digital marketing industry, which is expected to double growth to P800 million this year. Yehey! was one of several companies that deferred their listing plans last year due to falling stock prices, and Mr. Lim said they wanted to test the waters first in the first half before deciding. "If the company outperforms the market, then we might pursue it. There is no rush to do things and it will be prudent for us to also adopt a wait-and-see strategy," he pointed out. Mr. Lim said they were keen on selling shares to the public for the first time, which they first announced four years ago. Yehey! has paid all listing-related fees. Yehey! is the only Internet-related business of listed investment holding firm iVantage Corp. that receives payment from Google through its participation in the latter’s AdWords and AdSense program. The local search engine, formed in 1996 as Fiesta Online Corp., reversed its losses in 2006 by posting a net income of P8.6 million the following year through advertisements and online marketing campaigns. Yehey! ad revenues rose by two-thirds to P23.3 million in 2007. In 2006, it posted a net loss of P10.9 million. — Kristine Jane R. Liu, BusinessWorld