For much of this year, the buzz around Google Inc has been all about the flurry of new initiatives at the No. 1 Internet search company, from its YouTube video sharing site, to its new software for office workers, to its forays into television, radio and newspaper advertising.
On Thursday, Google executives sought to change the focus.
The company said that nearly three of every four Googlers, as the firm's workers call themselves, remain focused on the business that turned Google into a money-minting Internet powerhouse: search and online advertising.
And it is that business, executives said, that delivered a surge in Google's profits during the first three months of the year, as the company continued to outpace rivals like Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc.
"We are ecstatic about our financial results this past quarter," said Google chief executive Eric Schmidt during a conference call.
Google said first-quarter profit rose 69 percent to US$1 billion, or US$3.18 a share, up from US$592.3 million, or US$1.95 a share, in the same period a year ago. The results topped analysts' expectations, sending Google's shares up more than 3 percent in after-hours trading.
Schmidt predicted that search and advertising would continue to be the main source of profits for the foreseeable future.
"The core business is search and ads," Schmidt said. "We are still at the beginning of that business. It is a huge business, and we have a lot of room to grow."
For example, Schmidt said that just as in previous quarters, the company had devoted significant resources to continuing to perfect the art of linking search results with ads that are tailored to users' interests. Since Google gets paid when users click on an ad, those efforts translate into higher profitability.
"We are showing fewer ads and those ads are worth more because they are better targeted," Schmidt said.
Overall quarterly revenue was US$3.66 billion, up from US$2.25 billion a year ago. Excluding commissions paid to marketing partners, revenue was US$2.53 billion, compared with US$1.53 billion a year earlier.
Excluding certain expenses, like stock-based compensation, profits were US$3.68 a share, though analysts noted that without a benefit resulting from a change in tax rates, the figure would have been US$3.50. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected Google to earn US$3.30 a share and report revenue, without the marketing commissions, of US$2.5 billion.
"Google has been able to deliver amazing profitability given its enormous investments in human resources and capital equipment," said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
Google said its overseas business was particularly strong. Revenue from outside the US was US$1.7 billion, or 47 percent of the total.
Google's strong growth stands in sharp contrast to that of Yahoo, which earlier this week announced that sales had increased 7 percent from the year-ago quarter, while profits dropped 11 percent.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most