CEO Marissa Mayer puts on brave face as Yahoo! shows another loss

Yahoo! has once again seen revenues slip as CEO Marissa Mayer struggles to get the company back on track.

The Purple Palace reported quarterly revenues of $1.27bn, which was down 6 per cent from the same period last year. Full-year revenues also fell 6 per cent, to $4.68bn.

Yahoo!'s operating income for the quarter was $174.22m, an 8 per cent decline from the year-ago period. That in turn led to earnings of 35 cents per diluted share, which missed analyst estimates.

Revenue from Yahoo​!'s display ad business was down 6 per cent for the quarter and 9 per cent for the fiscal year, while search ad revenues dropped 4 per cent for the quarter and 8 per cent for the year.

The figures come as the latest setback to the company's turnaround effort behind CEO Marissa Mayer. The former Google exec played up the company's recent product re-launches and acquisitions as signs that Yahoo! is in fact doing better than its latest numbers would indicate.

"We saw continued stability in the business, and our investments allowed us to bring beautiful products to our users and establish a strong foundation for revenue growth," said Mayer in a statement. "In Q4, we launched the new Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Finance, and our new Flickr photo books, while quickening our pace of experimentation."

The company has in fact worked to shore up its product lineup in recent months. At this year's CES conference in Las Vegas, Mayer unveiled a host of new services which included revamps of existing products as well as acquired products such as news aggregator Summly.

The company has been aggressive in acquiring new products to boost its brand and regain its status with end-users as a provider of new web services.

Even before Yahoo! announced its latest financial hit, however, cracks were starting to show in the turnaround campaign. Earlier this month, chief operating officer Henrique de Castro abruptly left the company less than two years after being lured away from Google to the Purple Palace.

Shortly after news of the departure broke, leaks out of Sunnyvale suggested that Mayer herself was responsible for sacking de Castro. The Yahoo! chief said during Tuesday's earnings announcement that the appointment of a new COO was not imminent and that she would be taking over many of de Castro's day-to-day duties.

Shares in Yahoo! dropped by some 2.4 per cent in after-hours trading following the earnings announcement, to land at $37.29. ®