Perhaps the company’s status as the mega-search-giant of the modern tech world makes it expected for some onlookers, but a USD $14.42 billion revenue tally for the fourth-quarter, up 36% is still a profound set of numbers to digest. For Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) it a matter of simple accounting as expected and brings the company’s annual revenues to over $50 billion for the first time in their history.
After accounting for traffic-acquisition costs, the search giant shows net revenue of $9.83 billion, representing an up-turn versus the $8.13 billion for the same period of 2011. Expectations of analysts were surpassed, a result that has become the norm for Google beating a forecast of $9.6 billion.
CEO Larry Page told media, “We ended 2012 with a strong quarter. Revenues were up 36 percent year-on-year, and eight percent quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half.”
“In today’s multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Google.”
The cost-per-click (CPC) advertising practice of the company showed a 2% gain against the previous quarter, but overall was down 6% versus the previous year. This is a result of the booming mobile device market which is accounting for more and more of the company’s searches where the advertising rates are lower than their flagship traditional web property.
Activity in the form of aggregate paid clicks, including those clicks on advertisements on the Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) website or on ads running on partner websites, was up some 24% compared to 2011’s fourth-quarter, and 9% compared to 2012’s third quarter.
Up some 19%, advertising revenue remained solid, though down versus the 25% for the same period 2011. Generating $8.64 billion in revenues for the quarter were the companies own sites. While $3.44 billion was accounted for by partner sites, rising 19% versus the period a year earlier.
Costing Google an operating loss of $353 million Motorola Mobility is probably not going to be receiving a Valentine. Though it is still the early days for the business unit which was only acquired six months ago by Google, so only time will tell.
Stock Price Performance: (30-Day) Between December 21, 2012 and January 22, 2013, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock price decreased USD $12.76 (-1.78%) USD $715.63 to $702.87.