Google profits soar as the company goes social

Google has released blockbuster earnings figures along with word that more than 10 million people have already joined its freshly-launched online social network.

Google stock prices climbed more than 12 percent to US$595.80 after release of the earnings figures by executives who effused about Google+, YouTube, Android and other products promising even better days ahead for the company.

“If you look at the arsenal we are building it is really quite formidable”, Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer said during an earnings conference call.

Google reported that its profit climbed to US$2.51 billion in the recently-ended fiscal quarter on record-high revenue.

“We had a great quarter, with revenue up 32 percent year-on-year for a record-breaking over US$9 billion of revenue,” Google co-founder and chief executive Larry Page said on the call.

Slightly more than half of Google’s revenue, US$4.87 billion, came from outside the United States, the company reported.

Paid “clicks” on internet ads, at the heart of the web giant’s money-making machine, were 18 percent higher than in the same quarter last year.

Google reported that as of June 30 it had 28,768 full-time employees as compared to the 26,316 workers on the company’s global payroll at the end of the first three months of this year.

Google+ also promises to be a hub fueling use of YouTube, Offers, Android, Chrome and other products from the company

Page’s stated goals included simplifying and streamlining Google’s product line, putting “more wood into fewer arrows”.

Google is building on its strong suit, internet search and advertising, while investing in video-sharing service YouTube, mobile platform Android, and Chrome web browsing software that hold revenue generating potential, Page said.

Google is nurturing new products to capitalise on the unrelenting popularity of smartphones and tablet computers as well as online social networking. — AFP