Yahoo reported fourth quarter and full year
2012 earnings that were generally well received on Wall Street, thanks to
increased revenue and some other improved metrics that gave investors hope that
the company was moving in the right direction.
At
6:30 p.m. ET, shares were up 1.67%
to $20.65 in afterhours trading. .
In
a prepared statement, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who had been hired last summer
to revitalize the firm, noted that revenues were up for the first time in four
years.
"During
the quarter we made progress by growing our executive team, signing key
partnerships including those with NBC Sports and CBS Television, and launching
terrific mobile experiences for Yahoo Mail and Flickr," she noted in a
statement. "At the same time, we achieved tremendous internal transformation in
the culture, energy and execution of the Company."
During
the 4th quarter,
revenue increased by 2% to $1.3 billion and EBITDA grew by 8% to $509 million
while GAAP income decreased by 22% to $109 million from a year earlier.
For
the year, the company reported a very a slight increase in revenue to $4.99
billion. Increased costs did, however, reduce GAAP income from operations. They
fell from $800 million in 2011 to $566 million in 2012.
GAAP
net income however rose from $1.05 billion in 2011 to $3.95 billion in 2012,
thanks to sales of Alibaba shares.
Management
cited a number of examples of its efforts to turn the company around, including
increased search revenue and paid click revenue as well as some new products
and a number of recent alliances with companies like NBC Sports, CBS Television
Distribution and Werner Media.
Yahoo
did report declines in display revenue of 3% in the fourth quarter.
