Sunnyvale (California), Apr 08: Internet giant Yahoo Inc.'s net profit and sales more than doubled in the first quarter of 2004, with bumper income from marketing and user fees, the company said. The performance prompted yahoo to upgrade the Outlook. Yahoo, which provides gateway to the Internet with e-mail, a search engine, news access and other services, said net profit soared to 101.2 million dollars or 14 cents a share in the three months to March 31.

That compared to the year-ago net profit of 46.7 million dollars or eight cents a share. Revenue shot up 167.8 per cent to 757.8 million dollars. "Yahoo's performance surpassed even our high expectations, delivering the most successful quarter in the company's history," Yahoo chairman and chief executive Terry Semel 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."

Marketing services revenue more than tripled to 635 million dollars from 190 million a year ago, also boosted by acquisitions. Fees revenue surge 38 per cent to 88 million dollars, driven by a doubling in the number of people paying for premium services such as e-mail that can be downloaded into desktop programmes.

Bureau Report