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.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS