Yahoo Posts First Revenue Growth In 4 Years

Is Marissa Mayer leading a turnaround?

After years of decline, Yahoo might finally be on the mend thanks to their ambitious, assiduous boss Marissa Mayer, after it has posted its first revenue rise in four years.

It was only a slight increase, however, of just two percent, as 2012 fourth quarter income reached $1.35 billion (£830 million). Yahoo profit also took a tumble of eight percent, at $272 million, despite a net gain of $2.76 billion related to the sale of Alibaba shares.

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Search revenue was a big hit for the company, as revenue from that division was $482 million for the fourth quarter of 2012, a four percent increase compared to $465 million for the fourth quarter of 2011.

Yahoo making a comeback?

“During the quarter we made progress by growing our executive team, signing key partnerships including those with NBC Sports and CBS Television, and launching terrific mobile experiences for Yahoo! Mail and Flickr,” Mayer said.

“At the same time, we achieved tremendous internal transformation in the culture, energy and execution of the company.”

Yahoo has been in a state of flux for the last few years, which saw various changes at the top, until Mayer moved over from rival Google to take the helm.

She has appointed various ex-Googlers to back her up, amongst other executive shufflings. Just recently, Max Levchin, one of the co-founders of PayPal, was welcomed into the Yahoo board of directors.

The company is banking on mobile to help establish its comeback. It bought two mobile app developers, Stamped and OnTheAir, in 2012. There were also notable refreshes of Yahoo! Mail and Flickr.

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