14 DAY TRIAL // Google has revealed its third quarter financial results and, while the usual numbers are impressive, the company wanted to share a few that it hasn't before, the money it makes from display and mobile advertising.
Google brought in $7.29 billion in revenue in Q3 2010. That's a 23 percent increase over last year's Q3. Granted, 2009 wasn't a particularly good year for the tech industry, Google included, even though the search company saw some growth in Q3 2009 as well. This after an equally strong second quarter.
Net income was even better, $2.17 billion, compared to $1.64 billion in Q3 2009, a 32 percent increase. The figures should please investors who have been a little edgy recently.
There were some worries that Google would not pull off a strong quarter and its investment in long-term, risky ventures like self-driving cars and off-shore wind farms, to name a couple of the most recent, didn't help.
But there were a couple of more points Google wanted to drive home, it's no longer an one-trick pony, another popular criticism of Google's business.
"Google had an excellent quarter," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Our core business grew very well, and our newer businesses -- particularly display and mobile -- continued to show significant momentum. Going forward, we remain committed to aggressive investment in both our people and our products as we pursue an innovation agenda."
Display advertising
Along with the standard financial report, Google, for the first time, revealed how much some sections of its advertising business were generating. Display advertising, an area where Google has never excelled, is on track to bring in $2.5 billion revenue in the next year, based on Q3 numbers.
The money comes from YouTube and the DoubleClick display ad network, though Google, once again, declined to say if the video site is profitable. The company has been saying that YouTube is well on its way of becoming profitable for more than a year now.
It did provide another number though, 2 billion views are monetize every week, that's about one in seven views based on some earlier view numbers YouTube released.
Mobile advertising
But display is not Google's only new "billion dollar business," mobile advertising is becoming one too. Based on Q3 numbers, mobile ads will generate $1 billion in revenue over the next year.
Of course, both display and mobile ads should grow further so the actual figures may be even higher. The point of revealing all these numbers, something that Google doesn't plan on doing regularly, was to show how well the company was doing and it seems to have worked. Shares were up 9 percent in afterhours trading.