DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Google Inc.'s (GOOG) third-quarter earnings rose 27% to top Wall
Street expectations as the Internet company recorded a return to
sequential growth in traffic to its advertisers.
In after-hours trading, the company's shares were up 2.1% at
$540.89. The stock, having more than doubled from November's lows,
hit a 52-week high of $536.90 earlier Thursday.
The worst of the downturn passed with only a hiccup from the
search-engine giant as the company is already setting plans to beef
up operations after laying off workers for the first time earlier
this year.
Although paid clicks had been pressured lately by the economy -
falling 2% sequentially in the second quarter - the outlook has
remained bright, especially with Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT)
bing.com's having so far been unable to shake Google's search
dominance.
Google reported earnings of $1.64 billion, or $5.13 a share,
compared with $1.29 billion, or $4.06 a share, a year ago.
Excluding stock-based compensation, the figure rose to $5.89 a
share from $4.92.
Revenue rose 7.3% to $5.94 billion. Traffic-acquisition costs -
commissions paid to marketing partners - totaled $1.56 billion, or
27% of advertising revenue.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected adjusted earnings of
$5.42 a share on revenue of $4.24 billion, excluding
traffic-acquisition costs.
Google's U.S. paid clicks - a measure of how frequently
consumers clicked on its ads - surged 14% from a year earlier and
were up 4% from the second quarter. Costs per click fell 6% from a
year earlier but rose 5% from the previous quarter.
-By Jay Miller, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2355;
jay.miller@dowjones.com