Yahoo results improve under new leader

Marissa Mayer, the recently appointed head of Yahoo, poached from arch rival Google, has released improved sales revenue of US$1.09bn for Q3 in their financial year. However some US$2.8bn was added to the bottom line by the sale of part of its share holding in the Alibaba Group, where it still owns 23%, valued around US$8bn

They have been the poor relation to Google with regards to monetising the huge volume of consumers that use Yahoo and brought in Mayer to drive up profits. Following these figures and Mayer's announcement of a strategy that will be heavily mobile driven, Yahoo's shares gained 3% and may well be one to watch.

Mayer's track record at Google was formidable, she has lured other Google senior management to Yahoo also and investors are starting to jump aboard for the ride, the share price a humble US$16, with heavyweight technology stock Google, costing US$678 per share. The shares of online advertising competitor Facebook, that went to market at US$38 in a contraversial IPO earlier in the year, have badly burned investors fingers, currently languishing at less than half this price, which may well make a play in Yahoo shares even more attractive.