Google Inc.'s (GOOG) third-quarter earnings rose 27% to top Wall Street expectations as the Internet company recorded a return to sequential growth in traffic to its advertisers.
In after-hours trading, the company's shares were up 2.1% at $540.89. The stock, having more than doubled from November's lows, hit a 52-week high of $536.90 earlier Thursday.
The worst of the downturn passed with only a hiccup from the search-engine giant as the company is already setting plans to beef up operations after laying off workers for the first time earlier this year.
Although paid clicks had been pressured lately by the economy - falling 2% sequentially in the second quarter - the outlook has remained bright, especially with Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) bing.com's having so far been unable to shake Google's search dominance.
Google reported earnings of $1.64 billion, or $5.13 a share, compared with $1.29 billion, or $4.06 a share, a year ago. Excluding stock-based compensation, the figure rose to $5.89 a share from $4.92.
=> It is US$0.26 or 4.6% better than Bilibala's expectation of US$5.63 too.
Revenue rose 7.3% to $5.94 billion. Traffic-acquisition costs - commissions paid to marketing partners - totaled $1.56 billion, or 27% of advertising revenue.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected adjusted earnings of $5.42 a share on revenue of $4.24 billion, excluding traffic-acquisition costs.
=> Bilibala once again did a better guess than Wall Street
Google's U.S. paid clicks - a measure of how frequently consumers clicked on its ads - surged 14% from a year earlier and were up 4% from the second quarter. Costs per click fell 6% from a year earlier but rose 5% from the previous quarter.
-By Jay Miller, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2355; jay.miller@dowjones.com
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