In third-quarter financial results for the three months to 30 September, the global portal posted an international EBITDA profit of $1.6 million (£1m) on revenues of $38.7m (£24.8m); it made a $9.5m (£6.1m) loss on $26.8m (£17.1m) in the same period last year.
According to a Yahoo! spokeswoman, this profitability came two quarters ahead of schedule.
Globally, marketing services - which includes advertising - accounts for 59 per cent of revenues. Fees, listings and transactions make up the rest.
In Europe, the lion's share of revenue is attributed to marketing services, the spokeswoman added. Sponsored search is provided by Espotting in the UK and Overture in the US.
"It's difficult to say what the online ad market will be like in 2003," she said. "There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that people are increasing their online adspends, but no hard evidence as yet. We are seeing a few shoots of recovery, but are still basing our business planning on flat growth in 2003."
She added that, in the UK, Yahoo! plans to beef up its travel and shopping e-commerce services next year, as well as extending services that are doing particularly well in the US, such as job and personal listings.
There will be two new paid-for services in the UK.
Ongoing advertiser relationships forged during Yahoo!'s sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup include McDonald's and United Airlines.
Overall, Yahoo! made a global profit before tax and accounting changes of $48.1m (£30.8m) on income of $249m (£159m) in the quarter.
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