Search giant Google has comfortably beaten analysts’ predictions by reporting US$14.4 billion revenue in the final quarter of 2012 and US$50 billion for the entire year.
The fourth quarter revenue is 36 percent higher than the same period in 2011, while 2012 is the company’s best performance yet.
Growth in advertising revenue did slow, however. It improved by 19 percent, compared to 25 percent growth in the same quarter the previous year.
Of Google’s fourth quarter revenue, 67 percent came from its own sites, while 27 percent came from partner sites.
In terms of profit, the search engine increased from US$2.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 to US$2.89 billion in 2012.
But while paid clicks increased 24 percent year-on-year and rose nine percent from the last quarter, there was drop of six percent in the cost-per-click paid for by advertisers. This shift is most likely explained by the shift to mobile Internet use.
