Internet search engine giant Google has reported a growth of 8.45 per cent in net profit at $1.42 billion for the first quarter this year, even as its revenue dropped sequentially.
The company had a net profit of $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2008, Google said in a statement.
Net revenue has risen to $5.50 billion in the March quarter, compared with $5.18 billion in the same period a year ago.
However, sequentially the net revenue saw a decline of 3 per cent in the quarter, compared to $5.70 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The sequential decline in revenues is reportedly the first since the company went public in 2004.
"Google had a good quarter given the depth of the recession -- while revenues were down quarter over quarter, they grew 6 per cent year-over-year, thanks to continued strong query growth. These results underline both the resilience of our business model and the ongoing potential of the web as users and advertisers shift online," Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said.
"Going forward, our priority remains investing for the long term to drive future growth in our core and emerging businesses," he added.
The total costs and expenses of the company, which include research and development and sales and marketing, saw a drop of $14,409 million to $3.62 billion.
Analysts believe Google's efforts to cut costs severely and reduce expenses may have led to an increase in its profit in the quarter amid the challenging economic conditions.
Google-owned sites generated revenues of $3.7 billion, or 67 per cent of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2009. This represents an increase of 9 per cent over first quarter last year revenues of $3.4 billion. However, they show a three per cent decline from the fourth quarter 2008.
Further, revenues from outside of the US totalled $2.88 billion, representing 52 per cent of total revenues of the company in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 51 per cent in the same quarter of 2008.
As of March 31 this year, cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities were $17.8 billion. The firm's full-time employees declined by 58 people worldwide to 20,164 from 20,222 as of December 31 last year.
Internet search engine sites generated revenues, through AdSense programmes, of $1.64 billion, or 30 per cent of total revenues, in the first quarter of this year.
Besides, the firm's aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of AdSense partners, increased about 17 per cent.
