The world's leading internet search engine, Google, has posted a net income of $ 1.35 billion for the third quarter in 2008, a 26.16 per cent growth over the corresponding period last year driven by search-based advertisements.
Net income rose to $1.35 billion, or $4.24 a share, from $1.07 billion, or $3.38 a share, a year earlier. Excluding costs such as stock-based compensation, profit was $4.92 a share. Revenue climbed to $5.54 billion from $4.23 billion a year earlier.
"We had a good third quarter with strong traffic and revenue growth across all of our major geographies. Thanks to the underlying strength of our core search and ads business. The measurability and Return On Investment of search-based advertising remain key assets for Google," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said.
"While we are realistic about the poor state of the global economy, we will continue to manage Google for the long term, driving improvements to search and ads, while also investing in future growth areas such as enterprise, mobile and display," Schmidt added.
For the nine months ended September, the company has posted a net income of $ 3.90 billion, a 30.43 per cent growth from $ 2.99 billion in the same period a year ago.
The revenues rose to $ 1.60 billion in the nine months ended September 30, from $ 1.17 billion in the corresponding period a year ago.
Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programmes, of $ 1.68, or 30 per cent of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2008, which represents a 15 per cent increase over network revenues of $ 1.45 billion generated in the third quarter of 2007.
Revenues from outside the United States totalled $ 2.85 billion, representing 51 per cent of total revenues in the third quarter of 2008, compared with 48 per cent in the third quarter of 2007.
"Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the second quarter of 2008 through the third quarter of 2008, our revenues in the third quarter of 2008 would have been $ 59 million higher," Schmidt said.
Further, in the third quarter, we recognised a benefit of $ 34 million to revenue through our foreign exchange risk management programme.
Revenues from the United Kingdom totalled $ 776 million, representing 14 per cent of revenue in the third quarter of 2008, compared with 16 per cent in the same quarter of 2007.