Google released its first quarter results for 2008 last week, citing revenues of $5.19 billion, a year-over-year increase of 42% and a 7% increase from the previous quarter.
“We’re obviously pleased with another strong quarter,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, in a conference call on April 17. Google’s “search, ads and apps” strategy is beginning to show transformative effects, he added.
“Paid click growth has been much higher than has been speculated by third parties,” Schmidt said, referring to earlier reports by ComScore. According to Google, aggregate paid clicks increased by about 20% compared to the previous year and 4% over Q4 2007.
Google’s first quarter ended on March 31, just a few weeks after the company’s acquisition of DoubleClick on March 11. According to Google, “The overall impact of DoubleClick in the first quarter of 2008 was immaterial to revenue and only slightly dilutive to both GAAP [Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] and non-GAAP operating income, net income and earnings per share.”
Since the previous quarter, Google has grown from 16,805 to 19,156 full-time employees worldwide. Of that number, approximately 1,500 employees came over as a result of the DoubleClick acquisition. In early April, 10% of DoubleClick’s workforce was laid off, Google said. More staff decreases are expected as Google has said it will sell off DoubleClick Performics’ search marketing group.
According to the company, Google-owned sites generated $3.40 billion in revenues in the first quarter of 2008. This was a 9% increase over Q4 and a 49% over Q1 of 2007. Google’s network revenues, generated through its AdSense programs, brought in $1.69 billion in revenue, a 3% increase compared to the previous quarter and a 25% year-over-year increase. International revenues — which totaled $2.65 billion — were up 48% from Q4 and 47% from Q1 of 2007.
