Yahoo! on Tuesday posted a quarterly net profit of 153 million dollars, reversing its losses of a year ago, but revenue continued to slide at the Internet giant.

The Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo!, which recorded a loss of 303 million dollars in the fourth quarter a year ago, said revenue fell four percent in the quarter to 1.732 billion dollars.

While lower than a year ago, fourth-quarter revenue was better than the 1.23 billion dollars expected by Wall Street analysts.

Adjusted earnings per share of 15 cents were also better than the 11 cents forecast by analysts.

Yahoo! said its annual net profit was up 43 percent to 598 million dollars. it said annual revenue fell 10 percent to 6.46 billion dollars.

"The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to 2009, which was a transformative year for Yahoo!," said chief executive Carol Bartz, who has focused on cutting costs since taking over the reins at Yahoo! a year ago.

"Our business has positive momentum and we feel good as we head into 2010," Bartz said, adding that demand for premium display advertising had improved significantly.

Yahoo!, which is a distant second to Google in the US search engine market, said it expected revenue of between 1.575 billion dollars and 1.675 billion dollars this quarter.

Yahoo! shares were trading 1.88 percent lower at 15.69 dollars in after-hours electronic trading.