Reports: Yahoo To Exit China Operations, To Cut Up To 300 Jobs

(RTTNews) - Search giant Yahoo!, Inc. (YHOO) is set to withdraw its last remaining physical presence in China by closing down its research and development center in Beijing, according to media reports on Wednesday. The R&D center was one of Yahoo's three global centers that was opened in 2009.

The move will also see it cutting its global workforce of 12,500 by more than 2 percent or 300 positions, mostly engineers and scientists.

The latest round of layoffs take Yahoo's job-cuts tally to about 700 to 900 employees since October, mostly at its international operations outside the U.S., amid a series of cost-cutting measures by CEO Marissa Mayer.

"We are constantly making changes to align resources, and to foster better collaboration and innovation across our business. Today we informed our employees based in Beijing that we will be closing our office there," a Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) controls Yahoo's operations in china after Yahoo stopped offering services to users in China in 2013. It had then asked email users to transfer their accounts to Alimail, an email service offered Alibaba.

Meanwhile, the Chinese address for its home page, Yahoo.cn, redirects visitors to its Singapore site.

Yahoo's decision to close its Beijing office could have been influenced by issues related to censorship or pressure from the Chinese government since 2013.

The move adds to a growing list of foreign companies that are scaling back operations in China, with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) also planing to close two of its factories in China at month-end.

Software developer Adobe Systems, Inc. (ADBE) also shut its Chinese R&D center in December 2014, and social gaming company Zynga, Inc. (ZNGA) said last month it has also closed its Chinese studio.

YHOO closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $44.67, up $0.88 or 2.02% on a volume of 18.92 million shares.