Yahoo profit doubles, revenue still lackluster

Published 5:00 am Wednesday, October 20, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. shuffled through another quarter of sluggish growth, a performance that may further test the patience of the Internet company’s already restless shareholders.

The third-quarter results announced Tuesday also seem likely to intensify the pressure on CEO Carol Bartz to end a four-year financial funk amid speculation that the company could become a takeover target because of its slumping stock price.

Yahoo made some progress on the earnings front, thanks largely to cost-cutting moves since Yahoo hired Bartz to orchestrate a turnaround 21 months ago.

Net income totaled $396 million, or 29 cents per share, in the three months ending in September. That was more than double earnings of $186 million, or 13 cents per share, at the same time last year.

But this year’s figures included a one-time gain of $186 million from Yahoo’s sale of its help-wanted site, HotJobs, to Monster Worldwide Inc. If not for that boost, Yahoo’s earnings would have been 16 cents per share, a penny above the average estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue for the quarter totaled $1.6 billion, up by less than 2 percent from $1.58 billion at the same time last year. The paltry gain contrasted with a 23 percent revenue increase at Google Inc., which competes against Yahoo for online advertisers.

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