Google revenues surge 70% as profits almost double

23 Oct 2006

Google has racked up a 70% rise in its third-quarter revenues to $2.69bn (£1.43bn) and has almost doubled its profits to $733m.

The performance reinforces the search company's dominance over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo!, which on Wednesday reported third-quarter revenues up 19% to $1.58bn and profits down 38% to $155m.

The results beat market expectations and pushed the company's share price up 7.2% in after-hours trading yesterday from its close of $426 to $457.

The figures show that Google can rely on its core search advertising business while it considers its strategy in other areas such as its $1.65bn acquisition of video-sharing website YouTube last week.

Its share of the US search market, according to ComScore, was 44.1% in August, while Yahoo! took 28% and MSN 12%.

Google's business outside the US is accounting for an increasingly larger share of its overall revenues, now 44% compared with 39% a year ago.

According to chief executive Eric Schmidt, India and Brazil are growing at "very high rates", while the UK and Germany have performed well.

Schmidt said: "Business is very good here at Google and we had an excellent quarter in all respects."

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