Google Revenues Up 35 Percent

In its first revenue report since officially acquiring Motorola Mobility in May, Google posted second quarter revenue of $12.21 billion (£7.8bn), a 35 percent increase from the $9.03 billion the search company earned during the second quarter of 2011. The company released its fiscal 2012 second-quarter results on 19 July. The quarter ended on 30 June.

“Google standalone had a strong quarter with 21 percent year-on-year revenue growth, and we launched a bunch of exciting new products at I/O – in particular the Nexus 7 tablet, which has received rave reviews,” Google chief executive Larry Page wrote in a statement. “This quarter is also special because Motorola is now part of the Google family, and we’re excited about the potential to build great devices for users.”

Page voice loss

Page wasn’t in attendance for the earnings call, and continues to not be able to make public appearances due to a health problem that was recently described by company officials as the temporary loss of his voice.

Page’s absence has led to rumours and speculation about his health, but few public statements from the company.

During the 18 July call with analysts, however, Nikesh Arora, Google’s chief business officer, reiterated that Page’s voice has still not recovered.

“There is no more new news on Larry,” said Arora. “Larry has lost his voice” and couldn’t be at today’s meeting. Arora added that Page “continues to run the company” and make its decisions.

The $12.21 billion second quarter revenue was up 15 percent from the first quarter of the year, when Google reported $10.65 billion in revenue, according to the company. GAAP net income reported in the second quarter of 2012 was $2.79 billion, compared to $2.51 billion in the second quarter of 2011.

Motorola acquisition

Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola was completed in May, so the effects of that purchase are not yet reflected in a full quarter.

So far, however, revenues from the Motorola hardware and other product lines totaled $1.25 billion ($843 million from the mobile segment and $407 million from the home segment), or 10 percent of Google’s consolidated revenues in the second quarter of 2012, the company reported.

The GAAP operating loss for Motorola was $233 million ($192 million for the mobile segment and $41 million for the home segment), or negative 19 percent of Motorola revenues in the second quarter of 2012. Non-GAAP operating loss for Motorola in the second quarter of 2012 was $38 million, or negative 3 percent of Motorola revenues.

Google’s search business continues to do well, with aggregate paid clicks–from ads served on Google sites and the sites of their network members–increasing 42 percent over the second quarter of 2011 and 1 percent over the first quarter of 2012.

GAAP operating income in the second quarter of 2012 was $3.20 billion, or 26 percent of revenues, compared to $2.88 billion, or 32 percent of revenues, in the second quarter of 2011.

Consumer products expansion

During the call, Susan Wojcicki, Google’s senior vice president for advertising, talked about the company’s expansion of its consumer products and services, which have helped drive its success.

“The company continues to add to consumer products which make search easier and more efficient,” said Wojcicki, adding that Google has also continued to unveil the Google + mobile app for new mobile platforms.

More than one million new Android devices are being purchased and activated by users each day, while more than 20 million applications for those devices have been downloaded by consumers so far.

Google has also been busy lately with a myriad of announcements and product releases.

Last week, the company unveiled the latest update for its Chrome OS operating system for notebooks. Support for Google Drive cloud storage and offline support of Google Docs are among the touted new features in the latest version of Chrome OS – which has been dubbed Chrome OS 20.

Cutbacks

Also earlier in July Google announced a schedule that continues its efforts to cut and consolidate some of its less popular products used by customers, including the Google Mini enterprise search appliance, the iGoogle personalised home page and several other web-based services.

The cutbacks are part of Google services overhaul that began last September.

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