Google profit up but revenue drops for first time

By at 18 April, 2009, 1:02 am

NEW YORK: Google reported a 9.2 per cent rise in quarterly net profit, but the Internet search giant said revenue declined for the first time ever in consecutive quarters. The Mountain View, California-based company reported a net profit for the first quarter of the year of 1.42 billion dollars compared with 1.31 billion dollars in the corresponding quarter last year.
Revenue was 5.51 billion dollars for the first quarter, up six per cent from the same quarter a year ago but down three per cent compared with the fourth quarter of last year, Google said in a statement.
Google, which makes 98 per cent of its revenue from Web search advertising, reported earnings per share of 5.16 dollars, considerably better than the 4.93 dollars expected by Wall Street analysts.
The decline in revenue was the first ever for Google from one quarter to the next, but it did not appear to damage the confidence of investors.
Google shares were up 4.31 per cent to 405.50 dollars in electronic after-hours trading in New York after gaining 2.43 per cent during the day.
“Google had a good quarter given the depth of the recession — while revenues were down quarter over quarter, they grew six per cent year over year thanks to continued strong query growth,” chief executive Eric Schmidt said.

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