Yahoo Japan Corp. said Wednesday its net profit more than doubled to 24.83 billion yen for the year through March, powered by robust growth in ad revenue.

The Internet portal site operator, 42 percent owned by Softbank Corp., said sales for the year gained 28 percent to 75.78 billion yen. Both profits and sales were at record highs.

It said ad revenue rose 64 percent to a record 22.2 billion yen during the 12-month period.

Masahiro Inoue, chief executive of Yahoo Japan, said the growth in ad revenue was driven by so-called national clients, big budget advertisers seeking a mass audience.

The environment for "Internet ads has been improving for the past year or two, as misgivings about Net ads following the burst of the IT bubble have been lessening," he told a news conference after announcing the results.

During the year, the firm's Yahoo! Auction business enjoyed strong growth, with revenue increasing 88 percent to 20.8 billion yen.

The company upgraded its operational system to handle more than 10 million items and ran various campaigns and offered services to attract more users.

As of March, the monthly transaction volume on its auction site came to 46.7 billion yen, and an average 6.07 million items were offered for auction.

It said subscription growth slowed for its Yahoo! BB broadband Internet connection service, jointly operated by Softbank, in late February following news that subscribers' personal information had been leaked.

The pace of growth picked up again during the latter half of March, with the number of subscribers reaching 4 million as of the end of March, up 70 percent from a year earlier.