Google Rises to the Heavens After Posting Strong Q1 2008 Earnings

There was a great deal of hand-wringing before Google announced its Q1 2008 earnings on Thursday afternoon. Would the sagging world economy have a significantly negative impact on the search engine behemoth, or would they someone be able to overcome global economic weakness?

Google answered that question emphatically on Thursday, posting Q1 2008 earnings that exceeded expectations. The stock, which closed at $449.54 on Thursday afternoon, soared to $525 in afterhours trading. The stock is still well off of its high of $747.24 which was set in early November.

Here are the main points from today's earnings call:

-gross revenue of $5.2 billion, up $42% from Q1 2007

-Adsense revenues up 25% from Q1 2007

-Google.com generated $3.4 billion dollars, driven by traffic growth and monetization growth

-aggregate paid clicks growth up 20% over Q1 2007 and 4% over Q4 2007. This was likely one of the biggest reasons that Google exploded in afterhours trading; investors had been nervous about Google's paid click growth prior to this report

-International revenue increased to $2.65 billion dollars

-International revenues now account for 51% of Google's total revenues

-strong performance in the UK, Benelux and Nordic countries

-solid gains in Ireland, Spain and Italy

-"impressive" growth in Asia and Latin America

-traffic acquisition costs were $1.5 billion

-19,156 full-time employees

-Non-GAAP operating profit of $1.8 billion dollars in Q1

-operating cash flow of $1.78 billion dollars

All in all, another very strong quarter from Google.

Filed under: General Market News | Internet Companies