Despite posting a record fourth quarter, Wall Street punished Yahoo! for lowering its outlook today.

The figures were solid. Revenues excluding distribution costs (traffic acquisition costs, or TAC) topped a billion dollars for the first time with income recorded at $1.06bn, up from $785m quarter-on-quarter, and $932.1m in Q3. Overall revenue before TAC was $1.5bn, of which fees contributed $186m. Net income was $246.6m after adjustments for tax and divestitures.

Revenues for the fiscal year 2005 were $5.25bn, or $3.69bn after TAC, with a gross profit of $3.22bn, up 42 per cent on 2004.

On average, Yahoo! nets 99 cents per unique user, a figure that's trending steadily upwards, with 12.6m paying users.

But Yahoo! lowered its profits outlook for Q1 2006 to the $410m to $440m range, down from the $475m suggested by bullish analysts. Shares fell by over 12 per cent in after hours trading.

Yahoo! added 700 staff in the period, ending the fiscal year with 9,816 employees.®