Google
Three months after stunning investors with a rare quarterly miss, the world's leading search engine is blazing past the pros again.
Google's third-quarter revenue climbed 23% to $7.3 billion, fueled primarily by a 16% surge in ad clicks -- and advertisers willing to pay 3% more for the average Google-generated lead than they did a year ago.
Despite a hiring spree and a flurry of new products, margins improved all the way down to the bottom line. Earnings grew 30% on a per-share basis, to $7.64. Analysts were settling for a profit of $6.67 a share.
The news gets even better:
- Non-text display advertising has reached an annual run rate of $2.5 billion.
- Mobile ads are adding $1 billion in annual revenue.
- YouTube's now making money off 2 billion of its weekly views -- 50% more than last year's total. This is roughly 15% of the video-sharing site's total views, so there's upside here, regardless of the site's organic growth.
Google had no problem growing during the recession, so it's not a surprise to see Big G doing well now. Just don't assume that its strong results signal similar strength at Yahoo!
Google obviously isn't growing as quickly as Chinese darling Baidu
Big G appears to be doing everything right these days. Think about that $1 billion in mobile revenue. True, Google is giving away its Android operating system to handset makers -- unlike the proprietary Apple
The company refused to divulge whether YouTube itself is currently profitable, but if it's not, it can't be too far away.
As good as things are going for Google now, the near term seems likely to get even better.
What should Google do with its hefty $33.4 billion cash pile? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.