Yahoo Reports Revenue Of $1.22B, Earnings At 27 Cents Per Share

With newly-minted CEO Marissa Mayer at the helm, Yahoo has just reported its second quarter 2012 earnings. The figures spell out the challenge ahead for the new leader: revenues came in at $1.2 billion, down one percent compared to the quarter a year ago. Revenues excluding traffic acquisition costs were $1.081 billion, flat compared to a year ago.

Net income was $327 million, earnings per share were $0.27, compared to net income of $237 million and earnings per share of $0.18 a year ago. Income from operations was only $55 million down 71 percent from $191 million a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $0.27, up 47 percent compared to $0.18 a year ago, and easily beating analysts expectations, with net earnings per diluted share at $0.18.

From the release: “In the second quarter, non-GAAP earnings per share exceeded consensus and both display and search revenue ex-TAC showed modest growth,” said Tim Morse, chief financial officer. “We also moved aggressively with new strategic agreements with Alibaba and Facebook and announced several new partnerships including CNBC, Clear Channel and Spotify.”

According to First Call (via Seeking Alpha), the consensus estimate among analysts was earnings per share of $0.23 on revenues of $1.10 billion. It also noted that it expected a charge of up to $145 million to cover severance costs for laying off 2,000 employees, or about 14% of its workforce: we may hear more about that during the call.

Some more details on revenues from the release show very small increases for revenues across the board:

– Display revenues of $473 million were up by one percent over last year.
– GAAP display revenues were $535 million, up two percent over last year.
– Search revenue was $385 million, up four percent over last year.
– GAAP search revenue was $461 million, down one percent.

The company’s total cash position as of June 30 was $2.401 billion, down $129 million compared to six months ago. 

Listen to the conference call at 2pm Pacific here.

Full release below.