Yahoo Beats The Street For CEO Marissa Mayer’s First Earnings Report

Yahoo reported its first quarterly earnings with Marissa Mayer at the helm. She got a bit of a gift as Yahoo beat consensus analyst estimates. The company’s quarterly revenue grew roughly 2 percent from last year to $1.09 billion (vs. $1.07 billion). GAAP revenue was $1.2 billion.

(See Matt McGee’s related post about the earnings call.)

Search and display revenue “stabilized” according to Mayer’s quote in the press release:

Yahoo! had a solid third quarter, and we are encouraged by the stabilization in search and display revenue. We’re taking important steps to position Yahoo! for long-term success, and we’re confident that our focus on quality and improving the user experience will drive increased value for our advertisers, partners and shareholders.

In fact, search revenue was up 11 percent (on a non GAAP basis) compared with a year ago. Search revenue was $414 million; display came in at $452 million (essentially flat) and “other” at $223 million. Yahoo also reported net income of $3.1 billion based on the sale of half of the company’s interest in Chinese ecommerce site Alibaba.

Yahoo’s comeback strategy relies on the company focusing on technology innovation rather than solely on being a media property, which had been its former direction under previous CEO Carol Bartz. Mayer wants to emphasize mobile, local, social and personalization according to various reports. She has internally announced her vision for the company at a high level but not yet made her case publicly. The earnings call today will be the first opportunity financial analysts get to ask her about her plans.

The following graphic shows the sources and geographic distribution of revenues compared to Q3 2011.

Below is the full earnings presentation slides from today’s release.