By: iPadfanzz staff on January 23, 2013
Google’s fourth quarter earnings rose by 6.7 per cent, despite a financial drag caused by its expansion into device manufacturing and a decline in digital ad prices.
The company's earnings topped analyst estimates as its fourth quarter profit was up 6.7 per cent from a year earlier at $2.89 billion, or $8.62 cents per share, and for the full year Google's earnings grew 10 per cent to $10.74 billion.
However, things were not quite well on Motorola front as the unit continued to struggle posting a loss of $353 million besmirching the Internet giant's other profitable results. A year ago, when Motorola was an independent company, it posted a net loss of $80 million and an adjusted profit of $61 million.
Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette warned that results from Motorola would continue to be "variable" as it works through its restructuring and continues to write down intangible assets.
During the quarter ended December 31, revenues were up 36 per cent from the same a year before at $14.4 billion. For the year, revenues grew to $50.2 billion.
The revenues got a boost with more advertising pouring into Google during the holiday shopping season. The company has steadily delivered higher profits since the company went public in 2004.
What was positive for the company in terms of ad revenues was that Google’s average ad prices in the most recent quarter dropped by just 6 per cent from the same period in 2011. That’s very small during the economic downturn.
At the same time, Google was able to sell more video advertising on its YouTube subsidiary and other more graphical forms of marketing. In addition, more people clicked on the ads that appear on various platforms. Google’s total ad clicks rose 24 percent from the previous year.
Google also benefited a lot from the Android software which is now on the 500 million devices worldwide, giving the company an edge over Apple’s software for iPad and iPhone. Google CEO Larry Page said that his company is bound to benefit as the mobile market expands.
