Yahoo sales growth 'disappoints'

Yahoo continues to lose ground to Google

Search engine Yahoo has reported lacklustre sales growth in the third quarter which disappointed analysts.

Group revenue for the three months to September rose just 2% from a year earlier to $1.6bn (£1bn). That compared with a 23% increase at rival Google.

Although net profit more than doubled to $396m from a year ago, the figure was boosted by a one-off gain from the sale of its "HotJobs" search engine.

Yahoo's forecast for the next quarter also fell short of expectations.

The company projects revenue of between $1.125bn and $1.225bn in the fourth quarter. Market watchers had been looking for revenue of $1.26bn.

"The revenues were a little bit light and the guidance is also sort of uninspiring," commented Clay Moran, analyst at the Benchmark Company.