Great earningsAs usual the stock moved down on great earnings doubling their rev's etc.
Tuesday January 11, 6:37 pm Eastern Time
Yahoo reports higher fourth quarter net, revenues
(Adds details, stock price)
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The popular Internet portal Yahoo Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news) Tuesday reported another quarter of runaway growth, with revenues and traffic more than doubling and profits growing more than four-fold.
The Santa Clara, Calif. company also announced a two-for- one split of its stock, effective on February 14.
Yahoo said it earned $57.5 million, or 19 cents per diluted share, in the fourth quarter, excluding certain unusual charges, compared with income of $12.9 million, or four cents per diluted share the year before.
The earnings beat the official consensus on Wall Street for a 15 cents per share profit, although several industry analysts had quietly said they expected earnings to be closer to 18 to 19 cents.
Yahoo's revenues totaled $201.1 million, compared with $91.3 million in last year's fourth quarter, and it said its December traffic averaged 465 million page views per day, compared with an average of 167 million the year before.
The company's number of unique users doubled to 120 million from 60 million a year ago.
Despite the stellar performance in the quarter, which the company said was its best ever, Yahoo's stock fell sharply in after-hours trading after the numbers came out.
Shortly after trading in the stock resumed following the earnings report, Yahoo was quoted down more than $25 a share to $372. This came on top of a nearly 10 percent decline during regular trading Tuesday, when Yahoo lost 38-11/16 to 397-3/8.
Analysts say investors have become so accustomed to Yahoo exceeding forecasts that they typically buy on the basis of a blowout quarter before results are announced. Yahoo's stock has steadily been one of the best performers in the Internet sector and recently topped $500 a share. Even at its current price it remains more than triple its 52-week low of 110.
However, some analysts have suggested that America Online Inc.'s (NYSE:AOL - news) planned purchase of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news)could pose a challenge to Yahoo, which does not itself own any major content providers.
In statements made in the earnings announcement, Yahoo officials made no mention of the AOL deal, but said they succeeded in several fronts during the quarter, by growing the company's overall customer base, as well as its shopping service and its international presence.
``We achieved the most successful quarter in our company's history in terms of record revenues and number of users and customers,'' Yahoo President Jeff Mallett said in a statement.
In addition to thriving in its established services like search and content delivery, Yahoo said its newer shopping service also had a strong quarter, with an estimated $6.7 billion of online purchases conducted through its site.
Although Yahoo does not sell any merchandise itself, it does offer a consumer shopping service where online users can connect with 9,000 merchants and search different merchandise categories. Yahoo makes money on referrals to stores that result in a purchase, as well as on advertising on its shopping site.
Yahoo said that, after excluding various unusual items like in-process research and development, acquisition-related charges and amortization of purchased technology and goodwill, it had net income of $44.7 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $3.8 million, or one cent per share, in the year- ago quarter.