MOUNTAIN VIEW, California: The "worst of the recession is behind us", according to Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, who has also argued that the online search giant is considering making major acquisitions in the future.
The internet company recently reported its third quarter results, when it posted a 7% increase in revenues on an annual basis, to $5.94 billion, compared with the improvement of 3% it recorded in Q2 2009.
Net income also improved by 27%, to $1.64bn, ahead of analysts expectations, boosted by a 4% uptick in revenues in its home market, although the UK delivered a 1% decline in sales over the same period.
China and Brazil both performed strongly in Q3, with more positive signals similarly emerging in Africa, and in parts of Europe, where Spain, one of the region's most depressed ad markets, saw a slight stabilisation in spending.
Schmidt said "while there's obviously a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and we're seeing lots of signs of that in all of the industries that we pay attention to."
"It's all good news from our perspective. I'm very proud of our management team in what could have been a very significant downturn for Google."
International revenues accounted for some 53% of the web pioneer's business in the period from July to September, it said in a statement.
It added that the cost per click – or the amount advertisers pay when web users choose to access a paid-for listing – declined by 6% when compared with Q3 2008, but was up by 5% quarter-on-quarter.
Similarly, the number of "paid clicks", which include those on ads served on Google's own sites and those of its partners, improved by 4% on the figures registered in Q2, and by 14% year-on-year.
“It's clear that Google has weathered the storm" argued Bryan Wiener, chief executive of 360i, a digital advertising agency.
"Marketers are turning their attention to driving top line revenue and the most measurable way to do so is search,” he added.
Furthermore, display advertising demonstrated reasonable resilience, while 90% of the top 50 advertisers in the US have now run campaigns on YouTube, with recent examples including McDonald's and Hewlett Packard.
Searches through Google's mobile phone service also rose by 30% quarter-on-quarter, a trend the Mountain View-based firm argued was showing that this medium is becoming increasingly important to consumers.
With regard to the possibility of making future acquisitions to boost Google's portfolio of web properties, which includes YouTube as well as Orkut, the social network, Schmidt said "we're open for business, making strategic acquisitions, both large and small."
Among the areas of interest for the search titan are firms offering specialised technological benefits, and those which could boost its Chrome web browser and Android, its mobile operating system.
"We're certainly looking for larger businesses to buy, but in those cases there would have to be some specific - some major, major user base that we do not currently have access to, and so they are going to be quite infrequent," he added.
Despite this, Schmidt did not give a detailed outline when Google may begin to make purchases again, given the continuing financial uncertainty.
The internet company recently reported its third quarter results, when it posted a 7% increase in revenues on an annual basis, to $5.94 billion, compared with the improvement of 3% it recorded in Q2 2009.
Net income also improved by 27%, to $1.64bn, ahead of analysts expectations, boosted by a 4% uptick in revenues in its home market, although the UK delivered a 1% decline in sales over the same period.
China and Brazil both performed strongly in Q3, with more positive signals similarly emerging in Africa, and in parts of Europe, where Spain, one of the region's most depressed ad markets, saw a slight stabilisation in spending.
Schmidt said "while there's obviously a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and we're seeing lots of signs of that in all of the industries that we pay attention to."
"It's all good news from our perspective. I'm very proud of our management team in what could have been a very significant downturn for Google."
International revenues accounted for some 53% of the web pioneer's business in the period from July to September, it said in a statement.
It added that the cost per click – or the amount advertisers pay when web users choose to access a paid-for listing – declined by 6% when compared with Q3 2008, but was up by 5% quarter-on-quarter.
Similarly, the number of "paid clicks", which include those on ads served on Google's own sites and those of its partners, improved by 4% on the figures registered in Q2, and by 14% year-on-year.
“It's clear that Google has weathered the storm" argued Bryan Wiener, chief executive of 360i, a digital advertising agency.
"Marketers are turning their attention to driving top line revenue and the most measurable way to do so is search,” he added.
Furthermore, display advertising demonstrated reasonable resilience, while 90% of the top 50 advertisers in the US have now run campaigns on YouTube, with recent examples including McDonald's and Hewlett Packard.
Searches through Google's mobile phone service also rose by 30% quarter-on-quarter, a trend the Mountain View-based firm argued was showing that this medium is becoming increasingly important to consumers.
With regard to the possibility of making future acquisitions to boost Google's portfolio of web properties, which includes YouTube as well as Orkut, the social network, Schmidt said "we're open for business, making strategic acquisitions, both large and small."
Among the areas of interest for the search titan are firms offering specialised technological benefits, and those which could boost its Chrome web browser and Android, its mobile operating system.
"We're certainly looking for larger businesses to buy, but in those cases there would have to be some specific - some major, major user base that we do not currently have access to, and so they are going to be quite infrequent," he added.
Despite this, Schmidt did not give a detailed outline when Google may begin to make purchases again, given the continuing financial uncertainty.
Data sourced from Wall Street Journal/CNN Money; additional content by Warc staff
