Carol Bartz, chief executive of Internet company Yahoo Inc, is shown in this undated publicity photo released on January 13, 2009. ©Reuters

BEIJING, Jan. 26 — Yahoo Inc.’s quarterly earnings doubled in the last three months of 2010 despite its sales fell 4 percent, the Internet group announced Tuesday.

The company’s revenue fell to 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter of 2010, but its profit doubled to 312 million dollars.

The results raised the doubt among many investors on whether Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is the right person for the job.

Bartz signed a four-year contract with Yahoo as chief executive in January 2009, after the company’s several years of sluggish results.

Yahoo has struggled to boost earnings through layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, but the company’s revenue has fallen since Bartz’s arrival.

“We just completed a very encouraging quarter and year for Yahoo, where we saw our plans to turn round the company gain momentum,” Bartz defended herself in a conference call on Tuesday.

At the same time, Yahoo also announced that it will lay off 100 to 150 employees, roughly 1 percent of its 13,600 people on the payroll at the end of last December.

With a falling revenue, Yahoo has in fact already laid off more than 700 workers in the past two months.

Yahoo shares fell 38 cents, or 2.4 percent, to 15.64 dollars Tuesday after the results were released. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2011-01/26/c_13708005.htm