Yahoo Nets Profits Boost From Alibaba Stake

A rise in mobile revenues and proceeds from the sale of Alibaba shares helped Yahoo (NasdaqGS: YHOO - news) shares gain more than 5% after-hours in New York.

The third-quarter update beat expectations and prompted chief executive Marissa Mayer to launch a defence of her strategy after it came under attack from activist investor Starboard Value.

Crucial mobile advertising revenue was $200m (£124m) and she estimated that gross revenues from mobile would be more than $1.2bn (£770m) this year.

The sale of part of Yahoo's stake in the Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba yielded $6.3bn, taking profits for the quarter to $6.8bn (£4bn).

But there is concern that Yahoo's total revenue during the three months to September rose by just 1% from last year - a dramatic contrast to the 20% increase posted by rival Google (Xetra: A0B7FY - news) .

Yahoo's share of the roughly $141bn worldwide market for digital advertising now stands at 2.4%, down from 3.9% in 2011, according to the research firm eMarketer.

Starboard Value - a New York hedge fund - went on the attack, claiming that Ms Mayer, who took the top job in 2012, had been wasting money on ill-advised acquisitions and a bloated payroll while mismanaging its lucrative stake in Alibaba .

Ms Mayer, a former Google executive, told investors the $1.6bn she had spent during her tenure had made Yahoo more competitive in the mobile-device market.

And she insisted that Yahoo would not have been in a position to make as much money as it had on its Alibaba holdings if she had not taken steps to ease "years of tension and hard feelings" that existed between the two companies.

"This team has now been in place for two years and we've achieved much more than many people realise," Ms Mayer said.

Yahoo still owns nearly 384 million Alibaba shares, currently worth about $35bn (£21.7bn), eclipsing the value of Yahoo's ongoing internet business.

The investment leaves Ms Mayer facing further questions over how the windfall will be spent.