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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer appears to be on her way to leading the company back to profitability. For the first time in four years, the company reported revenue growth, and fourth quarter earnings exceeded analyst expectations.
The Wall Street Journal’s Amir Efrati and John Letzing reported, “Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Marissa Mayer appears to be holding the ship together. Six months into Ms. Mayer’s tenure at the helm of the Internet company, Yahoo posted an 8% profit drop and a 2% revenue increase for its fourth quarter. While the results were far from robust—last week rival Google Inc. reported a 22% jump in quarterly revenue, excluding its hardware business—Yahoo beat analysts’ expectations and showed its business was holding steady instead of deteriorating.”
CNNMoney’s Julianne Pepitone added, “Shares jumped 4% in after-hours trading Monday, but later cut those gains to about 1%. Yahoo reported earnings of 32 cents per share. That handily beat estimates from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who expected earnings of 28 cents per share. Excluding traffic acquisition costs — the portion of its revenue that Yahoo shares with partners — revenue came in at $1.22 billion, right around what analysts were expecting. That’s a 4% jump over the fourth quarter of 2011. Yahoo’s revenue for the full year was $4.5 billion, up just 2% from a year earlier.”
All Things D’s Kara Swisher commented, “Overall the results showed a non-sinking but none-too-powerful ship and not very impressive given almost every other Internet company grew revenue significantly in comparison…. Still, up is up, even if it is not up that much. ‘I’m proud of Yahoo!’s 2012 and fourth quarter results. In 2012, Yahoo! exhibited revenue growth for the first time in 4 years, with revenue up 2 percent year-over-year,’ said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in a statement.”
Connie Guglielmo from Forbes also quoted Mayer, writing, “‘We have a lot of work ahead of us but we’re seeing a lot of positive trends,’ Mayer told analysts during a conference call today. Yahoo is on ‘a multi-year march toward growth’ and she and her team are starting a ‘chain reaction.'”
