Web portal giant Yahoo! Inc gave analysts an upside surprise Wednesday when it reported a first-quarter profit of about five times that of the year-ago quarter on revenues that nearly tripled year-over-year. Net income for the quarter was $16.4m on revenue up 181% at $86.1m, up from net income of $3.3m in the year-ago quarter. Earnings per share rose to $0.07 from $0.02 last year. The results include one-time acquisition charges of $9.8m and related amortization costs of $1.2m, without which, the company saw a profit of $25.1m, or $0.11 per share. Analysts surveyed by First Call were expecting only $0.08 from the quarter.
The company said its daily traffic boomed 41% in the quarter, with traffic on its network averaging 235 million page views per day, compared to 167 million per day in December. Twelve million registered members were added in the quarter, as the overall base climbed to 48 million. On a year-over-year basis, page views were up 137%, while membership rose 190%.
The audience growth rate in February was 5.4%, which the company claims was the fastest among the top ten web sites. It cited Media Metrix numbers that showed its combined properties ranked number one in reach among work users at 53.4% and second in both home reach, at 44.1%, and combined reach at 51.8%.
Overall advertisers slipped to 2,125 for the quarter from 2,225 in the fourth quarter, which the company attributed to normal seasonal trends. The dip was more than offset, however, by an increase in average revenue per advertiser from $34,000 in the fourth quarter to $42,000 this time. On the e-commerce front, Yahoo said it added 1,100 new online stores during the quarter, giving it 4,600 in total. Its deals with hardware OEMs such as IBM, HP, Gateway, Toshiba, Micron and Compaq Europe will also see its services bundled with an estimated seven million PCs shipped this year.
The company grew substantially during the quarter as well, adding 117 employees from the end of last year, not including the GeoCities and Broadcast.com acquisitions. Yahoo promises more details on the integration plans for those two additions as the deals are closer to closing, with GeoCities expected in late May or early June and Broadcast.com during the third quarter. All the company will say for now is that it intends to operate Broadcast.com as a stand-alone division, while GeoCities will be a lot more integrated.
