Google 2012 revenue up by 36per cent year-on-year

The search engine giant cheered investors after reporting better-than-expected earnings.

09:51 24 January 2013

Google’s efforts to improve advertising, research, and development have paid off. The search engine giant announced that they “ended 2012 with a strong quarter.”

Based on the announcement, Google’s profitfor the final three months of last year was £1.83billion, which is 7per cent higher, compared to the same period in 2011.

Due to the better-than-expected results, Google’s shares immediately rose by almost 5per cent in after-hours trading.

Google’s chief executive Larry Page said: "We ended 2012 with a strong quarter,"

"And we hit $50billion in revenues for the first time last year - not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half.

"In today's multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit. It's an incredibly exciting time to be at Google."

Meanwhile, analysts agree that Google’s performance was impressive.

Business looked really strong, especially from a profitability perspective - they really grew their margins in the core business, which is quite amazing.

Most of that strength seems to be coming from international markets, which grew revenues quite substantially - up 23per cent, year-over-year." said Sameet Sinha from B Riley.