A major plus
Search giant Google announced its Q2 results late yesterday, and they comfortably topped analyst expectations. Total revenue of $9.03 billion was up 32 percent year-on-year, and when you exclude traffic acquisition costs (TAC) it was $6.92 billion. Analysts were expecting this figure to be $6.55 billion.
"We had a great quarter, with revenue up 32 percent year-on-year for a record-breaking over $9 billion of revenue," said Larry Page, CEO of Google. "I'm super excited about the amazing response to Google+ which lets you share just like in real life."
Intriguing that the Google CEO makes such a clear distinction between online and ‘real' life. This seems to be driven by a desire to emphasise the Google+ feature that has proven initially the most popular - circles - which enables you to categorise your contacts and choose which to share certain things with.
On the earnings call, which you can listen to in full from the embedded video below if you have a spare hour, Page revealed that there are already ten million users of Google+, which isn't a bad effort for something that is invitation-only and has only been going for a couple of weeks.
When Page was asked about the effect of all the patent litigation on Android, Page replied "Android's really on a tear...Despite the efforts of some of our competitors there hasn't been a slow-down."
Net income was $2.51 billion, significantly up from $1.84 billion a year ago. Google now has $39.1 billion in the bank. It added over 2,000 employees in the quarter, which was roughly the same amount is added the quarter before. Google's shares were up 12 percent in after-market trading.
