Google Sales and Earnings Break New Records

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Search giant Google broke revenue and earnings records in the third quarter of 2011, following up on last quarter’s records — and it’s little surprise that Wall Street wasn’t disappointed.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) reported record revenues for the quarter ended Sept. 30 of $9.72 billion — up 33 percent from last year’s third quarter.

Using GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), the company did not deduct for traffic acquisition costs of 2.21 billion, which accounted for 24 percent of advertising revenues, the company said in a statement.

Google broke sales records in the last sequential quarter, the first time that the firm had ever topped $9 billion in a single quarter, with $9.03 billion during the period that ended June 30.

In terms of diluted earnings per share (EPS), Google also posted records in the most recent quarter — the company rang up $8.33 EPS in the third quarter, a jump from $6.72 in the year ago quarter, and sequentially up from $7.68 in the June quarter.

Operating income for the latest quarter came in at $3.06 billion, some 31 percent of revenues, compared with $2.55 billion or 35 percent in the third quarter of 2010, the statement said.

Google’s own sites generated $6.74 billion or 69 percent of total revenues, while partner sites via AdSense brought in an additional $2.60 billion or 27 percent of revenues. AdSense revenues in the third quarter increased 18 percent over the year ago quarter.

Additionally, revenues from outside the U.S. constituted $5.3 billion or 55 percent of the total.

CEO Larry Page credited some of the quarter’s success to the popularity of its recently launched Google+, the company’s social networking competitor.

“Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started,” Page said in a statement.

Google’s stock was trading in the upper third of its 52-week range — up by more than 5 percent at $589.47 in late market activity Friday afternoon.

Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @stuartj1000.