Yahoo earnings continue to struggle as Mayer takes reins

Marissa Mayer has her work cut out for her at Yahoo. The fading Internet star reported its second-quarter financial results yesterday, in which revenue and profit both dipped slightly from a year earlier.

Subtracting commissions paid to partners, Yahoo's revenue for the quarter ended June 30 came in at $1.08 billion (£690 million), marginally below last year's total. Financial analysts had been expecting revenue of $1.1 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Net income was £145 million ($226.6 million), down from £152 million ($237.0 million) in the same quarter last year. On a per-share basis, earnings were flat at £0.12 ($0.18), Yahoo said.

The tech world watched closely yesterday to see if Mayer, a longtime Google executive, took part in Yahoo's quarterly earnings call for reporters and analysts. CEOs are normally present on the calls, but Mayer', on her first day in her new job, gave it a miss.

Yahoo announced on Monday that it had hired Mayer to be its new president and CEO. The move came as a surprise to many: Mayer had been with Google almost since its inception and has played a prominent role in determining the look and feel of its services.

At Yahoo, she will need to find a way to bolster its share of the search market and improve its display advertising business, which has been in decline for several quarters, according to research firm eMarketer.

In the quarter just ended, Yahoo's revenue from display advertising, including traffic acquisition costs, was £342 million ($535 million), up 2 percent from a year earlier. Its revenue from search, also including acquisition costs, was £295 million ($461 million), a 1 percent decrease, Yahoo said.

The income figures above include restructuring charges and deal-related expenses. Excluding those charges, Yahoo's net earnings would have been $0.27 per share, it said, ahead of financial analysts' forecast.