Yahoo shareholders seem pleased with Mayer after her first full quarter as CEO

Once endlessly depressing Yahoo is showing new signs of life after releasing its Q4 2012 earnings, with the company’s stock price getting nearly a 5 percent increase to $21.32 per share in after-hours trading at peak.

The company struggled to stay afloat during 2012, which began with a rough shakeup of its executive team and a handful of new CEOs (interim and otherwise). But shareholders are mostly pleased with the Yahoo’s direction under newly minted CEO Marissa Mayer, pushing the company’s stock price above $20 for the first time since 2008.

Mayer’s strategy includes doubling down on mobile development, revitalizing properties like Flickr, and in acquiring smaller companies that provide value to the overall business — specifically in advertising tech, Mayer said during the Q4 earnings call. She indicated that Yahoo has about “a dozen” products that are in need of a major revamp.

Mayer’s also stacking her team with lots of new executives and changing the company’s overall culture to match her old stomping grounds at Google.

“During the quarter we made progress by growing our executive team, signing key partnerships including those with NBC Sports and CBS Television, and launching terrific mobile experiences for Yahoo! Mail and Flickr,” Mayer said in the earnings report. “At the same time, we achieved tremendous internal transformation in the culture, energy and execution of the company.”

The strategy seems to be enough to convince shareholders that Mayer is moving in the right direction after her first full quarter as chief exec despite some so-so earnings numbers.

Yahoo’s fourth quarter saw revenue increase about 2 percent from the same period last year to $1.35 billion, and it stayed flat for the year. However, the company’s profit dipped for the quarter to $272 million compared to $297 million during the same period last year. The quarter also saw a one-time charge of $99.5 million related Yahoo’s closing of its Korean business assets.

Yahoo’s display advertising business was down 3.5 percent for the quarter compared to last year, while total search ad revenue rose 3.8 percent compared to last year.