Yahoo’s online advertising business continues to struggle, even as the company saw growth in mobile advertising during the quarter.
The highlight of the quarter was the $6.3 billion Yahoo reaped from the sale of Alibaba BABA shares, which was higher than analysts expected.
Still, the rare earnings beat isn’t likely to ease pressure on CEO Marissa Mayer.
“The wheels didn’t fall off,” BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said. “But there’s nothing to be overwhelmingly excited about.”
Excluding commissions paid to partners for Web traffic, Yahoo YHOO had revenue of $1.094 billion, up 1%, stemming a long slide.
Wall Street had expected revenue excluding commissions paid to partners of $1.05 billion.
The Sunnyvale, Calif., company broke out mobile advertising revenue for the first time, saying it was more than $200 million in the third quarter. Yahoo said it expected gross mobile revenue for the full year to exceed $1.2 billion.
Yahoo has also cinched its belt, closing offices and reducing head count 11% year over year. It earned 52 cents a share. Analysts had expected Yahoo to earn 30 cents a share