Yahoo Q1 Results: Revenue Flat Year-Over-Year, Net Earnings Up 28%

Yahoo today reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2012, and after three years of declining annual revenues, the company looks like it may just be on track to stop the streak — or at least slow it down.

Yahoo posted first quarter revenue on a GAAP basis of $1.22 billion, up one percent from the $1.2 billion in GAAP revenue Yahoo reported in the first quarter of 2011 (which itself was down 25 percent year-over-year from its Q1 2010 revenue.) This is the first time Yahoo’s quarterly revenues have grown on a year-over-year basis since the third quarter of 2008.

At the bottom line, Yahoo’s performance was solid, with net income of $286 million, up 28 percent year-over-year from the $223 million the company reported in Q1 2011. Net earnings were 17 cents per diluted share. Overall, these results are largely in line with what Wall Street analysts expected from the company. Investors responded favorably to the news, pushing Yahoo’s stock price up 2.4 percent in after-hours-trading within the first hour after the Q1 results were posted.

The basic numbers are of course informative, but hearing how things are going from the horse’s mouth is always key. So we’re currently popping the popcorn and settling in for Yahoo’s quarterly earnings call, which is scheduled to begin at 2pm PT. This represents Scott Thompson’s first full quarter as Yahoo’s CEO, and it has certainly been an interesting one: Between the financial results announced today, co-founder Jerry Yang’s abrupt exit from the company in January, Yahoo’s major patent litigation with Facebook, the pressure it’s getting for a dramatic turnaround from activist hedge fund Third Point, Yahoo’s recent large-scale layoffs and subsequent management restructuring, and the relative success of so many other tech companies at the moment, there are sure to be some hot topics on deck for Yahoo’s quarterly chat with its shareholders and analysts. Check back for our coverage of that later this afternoon.