Revenue and profits rose for Google in their first quarter, earning net income of $1 billion on $3.66 billion in revenue.
Google By Numbers; Profits Flatten Out
That net income is a little less than that of fourth quarter 2006, which reached $1.03 billion. But at press time in after hours trading, investors pushed shares of Google to $484.62, up nearly $13 since market close.
CEO Eric Schmidt also took the vacant chairman’s seat, giving him both top titles in the executive hierarchy at Google. He has a cash and equivalents pile of nearly $12 billion to play with, the DoubleClick $3.1 billion bid notwithstanding.
Google has been truly impressive with the growth of its international business. The company said in its earnings announcement that 47 percent of total revenues came from international sources, accounting for $1.71 billion.
“The global growth of our core search and ads business and our focus on building our partnerships drove our strong results in the quarter,” said Schmidt. “We continued to expand our worldwide footprint, adding important new partners and growing our platform to increase our ability to deliver targeted and measurable ads.”
Through AdSense on partner sites, Google pulled in 37 percent of its revenue, $1.35 billion. Google paid $1.05 billion of that back to AdSense partners, and that figure made up the bulk of Google’s $1.13 billion in Traffic Acquisition Costs.
Expansion of its partner network remains a key strategic initiative for Google. As for its Clear Channel and EchoStar deals, co-founder Sergey Brin said on the conference call these deals are for prime ad inventory, not remnant.
