Revenues for the first quarter hit $758m (拢412.7m) compared with expectations of $500m. The results are not directly comparable with last year when it reported revenues of $283m because the first quarter includes its acquisition of search ad firm Overture.
bought paid-for search company Overture in a $1.6bn deal last July as it boosted its presence in the increasingly lucrative search sector. In another direction, this year has seen the internet media firm pay 拢317.9m to acquire the European comparative shopping site Kelkoo.
The strong first-quarter results follow Yahoo!'s best fourth-quarter results since it launched when revenues climbed 61% and marketing services revenues leapt 178%.
Marketing services or advertising revenue jumped 235% to $635m from $190m in 2003. Yahoo! said that the increase resulted from a 48% growth in Yahoo!'s organic marketing services revenues, primarily in the search and marketplace properties.
Fees revenue for its subscription services, such as premium email and dating, also put in a strong performance hitting $88m for 2004, up 39%.
Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer, Yahoo!, said: "With our products more popular than ever before, we have experienced success across our entire business including strong growth in our fee-based and marketing services."
Listings revenue for the first quarter totaled $34m, up 16%, driven mostly by its search and marketplace listings.
Yahoo! also raised its financial outlook on the back of the strong results and announced a two-for-one stock split of all outstanding shares of the company's common stock.
Susan Decker, Yahoo! chief financial officer, said: "Looking forward, we are focused on making the appropriate investments and capital allocation decisions to help ensure sustainable, long-term growth. Due to our increased optimism about our business, we have raised our financial outlook for the full year 2004."
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