Google credits ad revenue for profit boost
Google hails improved advertising scene for $1.97 billion profit in final quarter of 2009
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Friday, 22, Jan 2010 01:03
By Amy Gallivan.
Google has hailed an improved online advertising market for the almost-$2 billion profits it recorded in the last quarter of 2009.
The search engine giant, currently embroiled in a bitter dispute with China over internet censorship, said it made $1.97 billon in the last three months, compared to $382 billion made in the fourth quarter of 2008.
This success was due to 17 per cent year-on-year growth in income, which rose to $6.67 billion.
These figures were also due to changes in one-off charges on investments during that time but Google states without the charges in Clearwire Corp and Time Warner, profits still increased.
Earlier this week internet rival Microsoft announced lower profits and revealed 5,000 redundancies would have to be made.
Commenting Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive officer, said: "Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year.
"Our performance in 2009 underscored the strength of our management team, the resilience of our business model and the pace of innovation within our product and engineering teams, which continued unabated throughout the downturn."
In the UK revenues totalled $772 million, representing 12 per cent of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 12 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Keith Wirtz at Fifth Third Asset Management added: "At least we have something to feel good about with this Google news in what has been shaping up to be a gloomy earnings period."
Mr Schmidt added: "As we enter 2010, we remain hugely optimistic about the internet and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit not only of our users and customers, but also the wider web."