Google has posted record quarterly profits of £1bn, up 27% leap on the same period last year, boosted by a rise in online shopping searches. Google’s net revenue in the third quarter rose 8.5% from a year earlier to $4.38bn, beating the $4.24bn expected by analysts. Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said: ”The worst of […]
Google has posted record quarterly profits of £1bn, up 27% leap on the same period last year, boosted by a rise in online shopping searches. Google’s net revenue in the third quarter rose 8.5% from a year earlier to $4.38bn, beating the $4.24bn expected by analysts. Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said: ”The worst of the recession is clearly behind us. Because of what we have seen, we now have the confidence to be optimistic about our future.” The company said large advertisers were more eager to spend on search advertisements in the third quarter.
19/10/2009
They added that consumers have also been shopping online more, helping the internet company notch its strongest quarter-on-quarter revenue growth since 2007’s final quarter.
As well as posting higher-than-expected third-quarter profits and revenues, Google said it was looking for major acquisitions and could buy a large company ‘maybe every year or two’.
“We’re open for business in making strategic acquisitions, both large and small,” added Schmidt.
Google said both the amount of money that advertisers pay for the text ads that appear alongside search results as well as the number of clicks on those ads by web surfers increased quarter-over-quarter.
Finance Chief Patrick Pichette added that Youtube – the video site that Google bought for $1.65bn in 2006 – was on track to become profitable in the ‘not too distant future’.
And executives said searches on mobile devices, like smartphones, increased 30% quarter over quarter, though they declined to offer details about how mobile ad rates compared with rates for ads in the standard search engine.
Besides acquisitions, Google plans to step up hiring of engineers and salespeople as well as invest in new projects as its business improves and worries about the economy recede.
