East Bay Business Times [bizjournals.com]...

Google's Q1 profit up 31% to $1.31B

Google Inc. on Thursday reported first-quarter net income of $1.31 billion, or $4.12 a share, compared to $1 billion, or $3.18 a share, in the same period last year.

I remember someone asking how accurate Comscore's data is in another thread a few weeks back.

My answer remains the same, although I'll rephrase it:

Comscore is about as accurate as consulting a Ouija Board.

Once again Google proves that the only people who really know what's going on at Google, are the top people at Google. No one else has all the data.

There will come a day when that will come back to haunt them.

That actually makes sense - an average Adsense publisher made 1/3 less in the last quarter (or last 1-3 quarters), Google made 1/3 more.

"an average Adsense publisher made 1/3 less in the last quarter (or last 1-3 quarters), Google made 1/3 more. "

Got a source for that? On WebmasterWorld, I think I've seen a good number of publishers saying they were even or up. Maybe we've seen more than an average number of people saying they are down, but then the people with poor results are more likely to post.

So, again, what's your source for that impressive statistic?

So, again, what's your source for that impressive statistic?

They buy clicks low and sell them high; that much everyone can agree on.

Ignore this. This Internet thing is a fad, a flash in the pan.

"Google boss Eric Schmidt said "innovation in search, ads, and apps" helped to boost earnings growth." Wrong - bleeding the #*$! out of your publishers since December helped boost earnings growth.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

Let's see, revenues up 41%, earnings up 31% - doesn't sound like they're ripping anyone off to me. Now if revenues were up 30% and earnings were up 40%, that would be a different story.

Most of you were laughing at me when I said that quarterly Financial Reporting has impact on AdSense publishers.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Well, I'm the one laughing now. I bought GOOG stock last month at $430 ....

I wish I had bought GOOG stock last month...

I didn't believe the Comscore figures for a minute. Google was always going to make more profit than Q1 last year.

Over to you now Yahoo ;)

I'd like to know what percentage is non-US revenue.

The falling dollar is bound to have helped these (USD) earnings.

I think it was 51%, just swinging away from mostly US revenue.

Looks pretty good on the surface - let's hope everyone doesn't go all gooey-eyed again and inflate that stock price too high... it would give G far too much buying power...

Also need to remember (and a few analysts are saying the same thing) that there mnay still be some skeletons in the closet to come on earnings etc. that may keep it all in check.

This could also be earnings manipulation - it is always simply a paper process to shift around expenses and earnings across quarters or to end of financial year etc to make interims seem better or worse. Of course it will always shake out (unlike Enron for too long) but be interesting to see whether any more Directors start seling their shares in the next few weeks.

Am I right in thinking investors get their profits purely on share price - ie there's no divi's right?

I'm still waiting for a source for the claim that the average publisher made 1/3 less last quarter.

BillyS has pointed out an interesting piece of news in the report: Google's revenues actually rose faster than their profits. So, compared to the previous quarter, they were distributing more of their earnings to their partners.

Of course, if you prefer to believe that Google keeps taking more and more from publishers, you are free to ignore that inconvenient fact.

We have not seen any loss of revenue share from big G in the last year. The only thing that dinged us was the clickable area change. We took a small hit there.

Still ticks me off to no end that they let their big-dog publishers leave the full-ad clickable... The rich get richer...

Don't know about being average, but it's certainly striking that my eCPM has detoriated over time to the degree that it does not make sense to update some of my sites as often as I used to. At the same time, Google is posting profit increases every quarter.

What really annoys me is the absence of a real competitor, the intransparency of Google's system, and the lack of any tools to control what ads are being displayed. I will cheer for 24 hours non-stop on the day GOOG stock will drop like a rock (yes, I still believe this day will come).

As an Adwords advertizer I can tell you that my average cost per click rose by approximately 31%.

I doubt it has much to do with the dollar being low against the Euro.

and here they go:
"Dollar's Drop Lifts Profits at Coca-Cola, Google "

Online auctioneer EBay Inc. said April 16 that the weak dollar contributed to a 32 percent gain in overseas revenue in the first quarter, twice as fast as U.S. sales. International sales make up 53 percent of the San Jose, California-based company's revenue.

Google, owner of the most popular Internet search engine, yesterday said international sales jumped 55 percent in the first quarter, helping the company top analysts' earnings estimates. Without the change in currency rates, revenue would have been $202 million lower, the Mountain View, California-based company said.

from the OP story:
"After subtracting the commissions paid to the company's advertising partners, Google's revenue stood at $3.7 billion — about $100 million above analyst estimates."

So, Goog would have been $100 mil short had the dollar stayed the same.