Yahoo shuts China operations

Internet giant Yahoo Inc. is withdrawing its remaining operations in China, laying off over 200 employees and shutting down its Beijing research centre, a media report said.

The company said it informed employees of the job cuts on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Beijing office, Yahoo's only physical presence in mainland China, was mostly made up of engineers and functioned as a research and development centre.

"We will be consolidating certain functions into fewer offices, including to our headquarters in Sunnyvale, California," Yahoo said.

The layoffs are the latest in a series of cost-cutting measures by chief executive Marissa Mayer.

Including the latest round, Yahoo has laid off nearly 900 employees since October 2014, mostly in offices outside the US.

The layoffs in China represent about two percent of Yahoo's global staff of 12,500.

Job cuts in recent months have also affected workers in Bengaluru, India, and the company's Canadian offices.

Yahoo stopped offering services to users in China in 2013. That year, it told email users to transfer their accounts to Alimail, an email service offered by Yahoo's close partner in the region, Alibaba Holding Group Ltd.

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