Google revenues up 27pc – company adds 2,000 staff

15 Apr 2011

Web giant Google reported Q1 revenues of US$8.5bn, which were up 27pc year-on-year. The company said investments made in the past are serving it well today and in the current quarter Google’s workforce has grown by almost 2,000 people.

Net income in the first quarter of 2011 was US$2.30bn, compared to US$1.96bn in the first quarter of 2010.

“We had a great quarter with 27pc year-over-year revenue growth,” said Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google.

“These results demonstrate the value of search and search ads to our users and customers, as well as the extraordinary potential of areas like display and mobile. It’s clear that our past investments have been crucial to our success today – which is why we continue to invest for the long term.”

Google’s Q1 revenue growth

Google-owned sites generated revenues of US$5.88bn, or 69pc of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2011. This represents a 32pc increase over first-quarter 2010 revenues of US$4.44bn.

Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of US$2.43bn, or 28pc of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2011. This represents a 19pc increase from first-quarter 2010 network revenues of US$2.04bn.

Revenues from outside of the US totalled US$4.57bn, representing 53pc of total revenues in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 52pc in the fourth quarter of 2010 and 53pc in the first quarter of 2010.

Revenues from the UK totalled US$969m, representing 11pc of revenues in the first quarter of 2011.

On a worldwide basis, Google employed 26,316 full-time employees as of 31 March 2011, up from 24,400 full-time employees as of 31 December 2010.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com