Google Points To Mobile Growth As Advertising Boosts Revenues

A strong performance from Google’s main advertising business boosted revenues by 11 percent during the second quarter of 2015, with the company claiming mobile search was a key contributor to better than expected results.

Total revenues amounted to $17.7 billion (£11.3bn), up from $16 billion (£10.23bn) during the same quarter last year. Advertising accounted for $16 billion of its revenue in the most recent quarter.

US revenues reached $8 billion (£5.12bn), as did the rest of the world, with the UK accounting for $1.7 billion (£1 billion).

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“Our strong Q2 results reflect continued growth across the breadth of our products, most notably core search, where mobile stood out, as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising”, said Ruth Porat, Google’s CFO. “We are focused every day on developing big new opportunities across a wide range of businesses. We will do so with great care regarding resource allocation.”

With so much of Google’s revenue generated by advertising, shareholders have been concerned that the trend towards mobile browsing could have an impact as smartphone and tablet users are less likely to click on sponsored links, while the amount Google charges for mobile ads are lower than desktop.

Google has paid a lot of attention to mobile shopping recently, introducing a ‘purchases on Google’ feature, which lets smartphone and users pay directly through search ads, with payment details stored by the search giant.

Elsewhere, the company has made significant investments in other areas like cloud and data centres, along with future technology ventures like connected cars and Google Glass.

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