Google's Net Sales Rise 96%

The fact that this news will be all over the place by tomorrow morning doesn't make it any less worthy of a post! From The Globe and Mail:

Google Inc., the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, said Thursday that third-quarter profit soared sevenfold as sales nearly doubled. The stock climbed 7.7 per cent.

After the close of trading, the Mountain View, California-based company said its profit surged 633 per cent to $381.2-million (U.S.) or $1.32 a share from $52-million or 19 cents a year ago.

Excluding certain items, Google earned $1.51 a share. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.36 a share, on average.

The company's net sales rose 96 per cent to $1.58-billion in the period ended Sept. 30 from $805.9-million last year.

Sales, excluding fees passed on to other websites for displaying ads, came in at $1.05-billion, above an analyst consensus target for $944-million, provided by Thomson First Call.

“Although this is typically a slower season for Internet properties, we had another exceptional quarter,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in a the release.

Shares of Google rose $23.25 or 7.67 per cent to $326.45 in late trading Thursday. The stock has risen 60 per cent since the start of the year.

Google-owned sites generated 56 per cent or $885-million of the company's overall sales. Revenues from Google's partner sites, through AdSense programs, generated 43 per cent or $675-million of total sales, the company said.

World domination looms ever-closer....

Comments

[Randy Charles Morin]

Here's my math. $1.58B - $1.05B = $503M in Adsense earnings paid out. I wanna kiss Sergei.

[Scott Cohen]

Looks like Google is contemplating a move into the classified ad space. I wonder what the pricing model might look like...and, would classified ad listings be included in search?? Neato.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1251278&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312