Internet media company Yahoo! has reported better-than-expected first-quarter results and said full-year revenues would be at least 5 per cent higher than earlier forecast due to a rebound in advertising and growth in broadband services.
Yahoo! also said it had increased its paying subscribers by about a third to 2.9 million as it works toward diversifying its revenue beyond the advertising-only model of its early years.
Shares in Yahoo! rose on the news, reaching $23.69 in after-hours trade on Instinet.
Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! posted a profit for the March-ended quarter of $46.7 million, or 8 cents per share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $53.6 million, or 9 cents per share. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Multex had been for earnings per share of 6 cents with a high estimate of 7 cents.
Revenue was $282.9 million, compared with $192.7 million a year earlier. The highest Wall Street estimate tracked by Multex had been $281 million.
Yahoo's first-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, a key metric for media companies, was $84.1 million, compared with $18.8 million a year earlier.
Outside the US, Yahoo! did even better, with EBITDA more than doubling from the prior quarter on revenue that jumped more than 70 per cent year over year.
Revenue from Yahoo's fee-generating business, which includes the company's Internet access deal with SBC Communications Inc., rose 61 per cent to $63.7 million.