Yahoo quarterly profit beats, Street awaits Mayer plan

Yahoo Inc's quarterly earnings beat expectations, but Wall Street remains keen to hear new CEO Marissa Mayer outline her plan for reviving the struggling Web company's revenue growth.

Mayer, a former Google Inc executive who took charge at Yahoo in July, is expected to make her first public remarks about her vision for Yahoo during the company's conference call with analysts later on Monday.

Yahoo shares were up about 3 percent at $16.23 in after hours trading on Monday.

"We know they've done a bunch of house cleaning," said Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser. "Everyone's focused on what's in the call; what's the orientation of the management team for the long term. The company has reset and any color they give on the call is paramount."

Excluding a $2.8 billion gain related to the sale of Alibaba Group shares, Yahoo said it earned $177 million in income from operations and adjusted net earnings of 35 cents per share in the third quarter.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S were looking for adjusted EPS of 25 cents.

Net revenue, which excludes fees paid to partner websites, was $1.09 billion compared with $1.07 billion in the year ago period.

Roughly 700 million users visit a Yahoo website every month - putting it in the top ranks globally. But the amount of activity people engage in on many sites is steadily declining and its smartphone offerings are deemed lackluster.

Mayer is expected to focus on revamping Yahoo's technology and products, shifting course from the media-centric approach embraced by her immediate predecessor Ross Levinsohn.

Yahoo ended the quarter with 12,000 employees, down more than 12 percent from 13,700 a year earlier.

(Additional reporting by Gerry Shih, Editing by Andre Grenon)