Ballyhoo at Yahoo!
Net ads drive net engine's revs over $1 bil
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Netco reported greater than 50% growth across all financial categories yet again, including a 55% jump in revenue to $1.17 billion and a doubling of net income to $205 million.
Marketing revenue was up 54% from the same quarter a year ago to $1.02 billion. While still a small part of Yahoo's business, user fees jumped an even bigger 61% to $149 million.
Revenue growth in the U.S. was 37% to $599 million, while international operations surged 124% to revs of $355 million.
"We have raised the bar even higher in the first quarter," CEO Semel said on a conference call with analysts. "We are in an excellent position to take advantage of all forms of advertising opportunities on the Web."
The growth in traffic to Yahoo! and other sites led to an industrywide increase in banner-ad prices of as much as 25% in the past year, according to Deutsche Bank.
In a stat sure to please investors, free cash flow was up 61% at $318 million, bringing Yahoo!'s cash horde up to $824 million and giving it the means to continue Semel's strategy of growing through acquisitions.
With performance ahead of expectations last quarter, company upped its guidance for the full year. It's now expecting to bring in revenue minus costs it pays to distribution partners of $3.56 billion-$3.71 billion for 2005 and operating income before depreciation and amortization of $1.5 billion-$1.57 billion. Figures would be up about 38% and 50%, respectively, from 2004.
Company is in the midst of moving all its content production to a new studio in Santa Monica under entertainment topper and former ABC exec Lloyd Braun. It's also significantly expanding its music presence with the recent acquisition of MusicMatch and a soon-to-launch online musicstore.
Yahoo! shares closed up 2% at $33.22 before earnings were reported and were up an additional 5% in after-hours trading.
(Bloomberg News contributed to this report.)
