On Tuesday, Yahoo reported a fourth quarter net loss of $303 million, with the sales going down due to the global economic crisis. In order to better show the situation that the company is in, the lost amount, which equals 22 cents a share, was compared to last year’s figures, when Yahoo reported a profit of $206 million. Excluding items, earnings rose to 17 cents from 13 cents.

Still, the results appear to be better than the analysts’ estimations. “In this marketplace, I think we are all pleased,” said Mr. Blake Jorgensen, Yahoo’s chief financial officer, in a recent interview, and also added that “We delivered on the profitability expectations that we set a year ago.”

The company’s total revenue decreased 1.4 percent to $1.81 billion, while the revenue excluding traffic-acquisition costs dropped 2 percent to $1.38 billion, compared with the $1.37 million estimated by analysts.

Yahoo’s new Chief Executive Carol A. Bartz, who replaced co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang earlier this month, explained that the company made important investments while managing costs, in order to make sure that the company will make it through the economic downturn.

The expectations for this year’s first quarter total revenue are between $1.53 billion to $1.73 billion. For now, the company’s officials did not release any estimates for the rest of the year, as the economic uncertainty is too strong.

There are also many speculations about a possible deal between Yahoo and Microsoft. Last week, Ms. Bartz confirmed that she spoke to Microsoft’s Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, but refused to go into details.