Google’s sales growth slows as economy hampers demand
GOOGLE Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, reported slower profit and sales growth in the first quarter as the recession discouraged users from clicking on ads.
Net income climbed 8.9 percent to $1.42 billion, or $4.49 a share, the company said yesterday. Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales were $4.07 billion, compared with the average analyst estimate of $4.1 billion in a Bloomberg survey.
The slump in advertising spending led to Google’s first sequential drop in quarterly sales since it went public in 2004. The company is now cutting research, marketing and side projects to cope with the economy, which shrank 6.3 percent last quarter.
“We’re still basically in uncharted territory,” chief executive officer Eric Schmidt said on a conference call. “The current economic environment, which everybody is all very, very familiar with, remains tough.”
- from Business Mirror
US-based Google, which owns YouTube, gained £3.7bn in revenues during the first three months of 2009 – almost 4% below the previous quarter and its first quarter-on-quarter drop. Google was still 6% ahead of the same period last year, but it is the first time that year-on-year growth has dropped to single digits since the company’s stock market launch in August, 2004. However, the results exceeded analyst expectations. Chief executive Eric Schmidt said: “Google had a good quarter given the depth of the recession.” – from Examiner