Yahoo shares soared 14% Thursday after the company reported quarterly results that blew past analysts’ estimates and Yahoo also announced a stock split. A resurgence in online advertising and continued growth in paid subscriptions ignited the results, which were reported after the market closed.
The Internet media company earned $101 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with $47 million, or 8 cents, a year ago.
Revenue, excluding ad revenue that Yahoo shares with distribution partners, nearly doubled to $550 million for its first quarter ended March 31. Sales were boosted by Yahoo’s acquisition of Web advertising-driven search engine Overture Services last year. As a result, Yahoo revised its 2004 revenue projections upward to $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion. That, too, eclipsed analysts’ projections.
eMarketer lends these statistics on paid search and how it is leading to a rebirth of online advertising:
* Yahoo!’s 2003 global online advertising revenues, at $1.2 billion, represent 12.8% of worldwide online advertising revenues.
*The ‘big three’ portals, namely Yahoo!, MSN and AOL, accounted for 31% of the worldwide total of $9.4 billion in online ad revenues last year.
*Of the $7.2 billion total US online ad revenues in 2003, paid search took in $2.3 billion, or 31.5%.
Yahoo CEO Terry Semel called it “the most successful quarter by far” in the company’s 10-year history. “If you can’t tell, I have a smile on my face,” he said in a conference call. “The numbers speak for themselves.”
