Google is 'back on its game' as profits leap and investors get extra shares
Google is back making more money than ever. And investors are being rewarded with its first-ever stock split.
Larry Page ... Google deserves love
With profits up 61 per cent, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote to shareholders, "Today we announced plans to create a new class of non-voting capital stock, which will be listed on NASDAQ. These shares will be distributed via a stock dividend to all existing stockholders: the owner of each existing share will receive one new share of the non-voting stock, giving investors twice the number of shares they had before."
It also leaves Page and Brin firmly in charge.
The New York Times said the search giant, which had a disappointing fourth quarter in 2011 was "back on its game." .
Net income in the first quarter rose 60 percent to $2.89 billion, or $8.88 a share, compared with $1.8 billion, or $5.59 a share, in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue rose 24 percent to $10.65 billion. Analysts had been expecting $2.5 billion less.
Cost-per-click, dropped 12 percent from the quarter a year ago and 6 percent from the fourth quarter. But what counts is the number of paid clicks: and that was up 39 percent from the comparable quarter a year ago and up 7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011.
The stock rose more than $15 during regular trading to $651.
“Google had another great quarter with revenues up 24% year on year,” said CEO Larry Page. “We also saw tremendous momentum from the big bets we’ve made in products like Android, Chrome and YouTube.”
Despite frequent privacy concerns Page, who marked a year as chief executive this month, wrote in a letter to the Google community last week that “we have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love.”
The Times comment:"To earn that love, at least from investors, Mr. Page will have to surmount several challenges over his second year. Foremost among them is doing a better job of anticipating privacy issues for users while continuing to improve the experience for advertisers."