Earnings: Google Q4 Profits Plummet 70 Percent; But Still Beats Estimates
This story was written by David Kaplan.
Google's Q4 net income came in $382 million ($1.21 per share), down 70 percent from $1.2 billion ($3.79 per share) last year. Revenues for the period were $5.70 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, representing an 18% increase over fourth quarter 2007 revenues of $4.83 billion. Marketwatch points out that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) actually beat analysts forecasts for the quarter. Not counting special items, Google said earnings were $5.10 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters (NSDQ: TRIN) expected earnings excluding special items of $4.95 a share on $4.1 billion in net revenue.
Google Network Revenues: Ad sales from programs like AdSense delivered $1.69 billion in revenuesroughly 30 percent of all Google's Q4 revsfor respectable 4 percent gain year-over-year.
Google Sites Revenues: Google-owned sites generated revenues of $3.81 billion. The segment account for 67 percent of Google's total revenues during the period. Site revenues were up 22 compared to Q407.
International: Revenues from outside of the United States were $2.86 billion. Google says that if foreign exchange rates remained constant from last year, the segment's revenues this past quarter would have been $266 million higher. UK revotaled $685 million, an increase fo 14 percent over last year.
Release | Webcast (4:30 PM EDT)
By David Kaplan