Google posts $ 5.70 bn revenue in Q4

Mountain View, (California) Jan 23: Search Engine giant Google Inc on Thursday, Jan 22 announced the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2008 results.

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO said, "Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment. Search query growth was strong, revenues were up in most verticals, and we successfully contained costs." He added that the global recession may last long, but Google's focus is long term and will continue to invest in core search and ad business.

The company announced that it is planning to offer employees a voluntary, one-for-one stock option exchange. This program will created to more incentives for employee to remain in Google and cont

Google posted $5.70 billion revenue for the fourth quarter ended on Dec 31, 2008. 18 per cent increase is reported compared to the fourth quarter of 2007 and an increase of 3 per cent compared to the third quarter of 2008. The sites owned by Google posted $3.81 billion revenue in the fourth quarter of 2008. This is 67 per cent of the total revenues. Through AdSense programs, Google's partner sites generated revenues of $1.69 billion which is 30 per cent of total revenues.

Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.86 billion, representing 50 pc of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to 48 pc in the fourth quarter of 2007 and 51 per cent in the third quarter of 2008. Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18 pc over the fourth quarter of 2007 and increased approximately 10 per cent over the third quarter of 2008.

Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC), the portion of revenues shared with Google"s partners, decreased to $1.48 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. In third quarter of 2008 the TAC was $1.50 billion. Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $1.65 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, or 29 per cent of revenues, compared to $1.72 billion in the third quarter of 2008, or 31 per cent of revenues.

Google also announced that it is planning to offer employees a voluntary, one-for-one stock option exchange. This program, intended to create more incentives for employees to remain at Google and contribute to achieving its business objectives. Reports suggest that the program is scheduled to commence on Jan 29 and end on Mar 3, 2009 at 6:00 am Pacific Time.

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)