For as bad a reputation as Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has among investors, the Internet giant had crushed earnings expectations in three of the past four quarters heading into tonight's Q3 report. The streak is still alive.
In her first quarter as CEO, Marissa Mayer's Yahoo! grew revenue 2% year over year to $1.089 billion after accounting for traffic acquisition costs. Earnings soared 66% to $0.35 a share after excluding restructuring and other costs. Wall Street was looking for $1.08 billion and $0.26, respectively, according to data compiled by Yahoo! Finance .
"We're taking important steps to position Yahoo! for long-term success, and we're confident that our focus on quality and improving the user experience will drive increased value for our advertisers, partners and shareholders," Mayer, a technologist with a proven track record, said in a press release.
Interestingly, Yahoo!'s beat comes on the heels of an earnings embarrassment at Google (GOOG +1.69%) -- Mayer's former employer -- and a fiscal Q1 miss at Microsoft (MSFT 0.16%), which is suffering from a sharp slowdown in PC sales.
