Google announced its third quarter 2010 financial results on Thursday and smashed through previous estimates.
The search giant reported earnings of $7.67 a share and net revenues of $5.48 billion. Analysts had previously predicted earnings of $6.67 and $5.25 billion net revenue. The results blew past these predictions and shares in Google soared by nearly 8% in after hours trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Paid clicks, cost-per-click were both up year-on-year and Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed the display and mobile areas were showing momentum.
"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."
The earnings results were positive for Google after a weak Q2 2010. Google also saw a significant increase in employee headcount. Google employed 23,331 full-time employees as of September 30, 2010, up from 21,805 full-time employees as of June 30, 2010. Fingers crossed the company will be releasing those self driving cars soon that can take you for 140,000 miles in traffic with only minimal human interaction and a few adsense impressions on your windscreen (ok I made that last bit up).
Image Credit: Jonah Grant (Flickr)