Yahoo Soars After Q3 EPS Earnings Beat (YHOO)

is up more than five percent in after hours trading after announcing its third-quarter earnings results. The company reported a Q3 EPS of $0.34 versus the Street estimate of $0.33. Despite the beat, earnings per share were down three percent from the year-ago period. Revenue came in at $1.08 billion versus the Street estimate of $1.09 billion. Sales were down one percent year-over-year. "I'm very pleased with our execution, especially as we've continued to invest in and strengthen our core business," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said in a

. "In Q3, we launched new user experiences across many of our digital daily habits -- Yahoo Screen, My Yahoo, Fantasy Sports, and more. Now with more than 800 million monthly users on Yahoo -- up 20 percent over the past 15 months -- we're achieving meaningful increases in user engagement and traffic." "In Q3, we generated free cash flow of $249 million and returned an additional $1.7 billion to shareholders through buybacks," added Ken Goldman, CFO of Yahoo. "As we exit Q3, we are extremely pleased with the strength of our balance sheet, with nearly $3.2 billion in cash and securities, and we are well positioned with ample liquidity to fund our future investments for growth." Yahoo gained a lot of media attention this year after making a

of acquisitions. The company has become particularly interested in

with big ideas. Yahoo has taken a much different path in promoting its brand to everyday consumers. Instead of using a bunch of handsets from new manufacturers in its promo for the newly revised Yahoo Mail, the company employed a

from

. This was an interesting choice for a mail app that is also available on Windows Phone and Android devices. Disclosure: