Yelp revenue beats Street on higher advertising sales

(Reuters) - Yelp Inc reported a bigger-than-expected 40 percent jump in quarterly revenue as more local businesses advertised on Yelp.com, its consumer review website.

Shares of the company, whose website and app allow users to rate restaurants and a variety of other businesses, rose about 7 percent after the bell on Wednesday.

San Francisco-based Yelp, which gets about four-fifths of its revenue from local advertisers, said the number of local advertising accounts rose about 37 percent to 104,200 in the third quarter.

Analysts were expecting the company to report 102,500 accounts in the quarter, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

Yelp has been investing to grow its website beyond user reviews by investing in services such as restaurant reservations, food ordering and delivery.

The company reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $8.1 million, or 11 cents per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a profit of $3.6 million, or 5 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose to $143.6 million from $102.5 million.

Analysts on average had expected a loss of 9 cents per share and revenue of $141.4 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

To Wednesday's close of $22.07, Yelp's stock had fallen nearly 60 percent this year.

(Reporting by Kshitiz Goliya in Bengaluru; Editing by Robin Paxton)