First quarter reports have shown Google’s revenue rose by 31 per cent to $14 billion (£9.5 billion) in the past three months, mostly driven by strong mobile advertising gains.
The quarter, which ended on March 31, has established a strong start for the search engine giant for the year. The revenue figure doesn’t take into account the fees and commissions Google pays to other sites running its ads, which if included would take the figure down to $11.01 billion (£7.19 billion).
“We had a very strong start to 2013, with $14.0 billion in revenue, up 31 per cent year on year,” said Google CEO Larry Page. “We are working hard and investing in our products that aim to improve billions of people’s lives around the world.”
According to Google, the company’s net income was $3.5 billion (£2.27 billion) for the quarter, which equates to $9.94 (£6.47) a share. In comparison, the report for last year revealed that the company’s net income was just $2.89 billion (£1.88 billion) or $8.75 (£5.70) a share for the same quarter.
Google’s advertising business saw the frequency of paid clicks, or those search ads that advertisers have to pay for, increase by 20 per cent over the same period in 2012.
Eighteen months ago, the price Google advertisers pay dropped due to the increase in mobile search. Any advertising shown on mobile devices are a lot cheaper than those shown on desktop platforms.
However, these prices seem to now be stabilising. The cost per click, which is the price Google charges for paid click ads, only fell 4 per cent in the first quarter of this year, compared to 6 per cent in the closing quarter of 2012 and 15 per cent in the third quarter of last year.
Of the total revenue accumulated in the quarter, Google-owned sites accounted for 67 per cent with $8.64 billion (£5.62 billion), which was an 18 per cent increase. A quarter of total Google sales, $3.26 billion (£2.13 billion), came from partner sites, while “other” revenues represented a 150 per cent increase, contributing $1.05 billion (£684 million) to the total revenue for the quarter.
Via: Engadget
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