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Yahoo's 4th-quarter and 2004 earnings beat expectations

Yahoo reports 4th quarter and yearly 2004 earnings that beat analysts expectations.

The Internet bellwether reported $373 million in profits, or 25 cents per share, for the three months ending Dec. 31.

The figure includes $185 million, or 13 cents a share, from the sale of an undisclosed investment.

Without the investment sale, earnings for the quarter came in at $187 million, or 13 cents a share. That's higher than Wall Street's 11-cents-per-share expectation, according to Thomson First Call's consensus of analyst estimates. It's up from 5 cents a share on $75 million in profits from the previous year.

For 2004, net income hit $840 million, or 58 cents a share, after gaining $314 million in its investment sale and tax benefits. Excluding the gains, Yahoo reported $526 million, or 36 cents a share, in profits for 2004, compared with $238 million or 18 cents per share for 2003.

Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs, or "TAC," related to its commercial search business, reached $785 million for the quarter and $2.6 billion for the year. In comparison, Yahoo reported $511.3 million for the fourth quarter 2003, and $1.47 billion for the year.

Yahoo focuses on its revenue numbers without TAC, calling the figure a more accurate reflection of its search business. TAC is the amount of money its Overture Services division pays its high-profile distributors, such as Microsoft's MSN, to host its commercial search results.

Businesses that advertise on Overture pay the company every time someone clicks on their links, but a portion of these revenues are then paid to distributors such as MSN.

Including TAC, fourth-quarter 2004 revenue hit $1.08 billion and its year-end total grew to $3.58 billion.

Source: C-Net News

Posted by seomasters at January 18, 2005 12:12 PM | TrackBack