Google surpasses $10B in revenue for Q4, but misses forecast

Google just announced its fourth quarter earnings report for 2011, and while the numbers appear good on the surface, investors don’t seem to agree.

For the first time ever, Google has surpassed $10 billion in gross revenue for the quarter, reaching $10.58 billion, a 25 percent increase compared to last year. Net revenue was $8.13 billion, which was slightly lower than the $8.3 billion Citi analyst Mark Mahaney was expecting. Net revenue also missed projections of around $8.4 billion by Wall Street analysts as well.

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Investors aren’t taking too kindly to the news, with Google’s stock falling as much as 10 percent in after hours trading.

During a conference call with investors today, Google executives tried to sound as positive as possible about the earnings report. I counted at least one sarcastic “wow” from CEO Larry Page when discussing updated Android numbers, which included 250 million total devices activated and 11 billion Android Market downloads. Page also said he was “super excited” about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+ in the earnings report.

The company also announced that its fledgling social network Google+ has surpassed 90 million users.

Google reported $2.71 billion in profits on a GAAP basis for the quarter, compared to $2.54 billion last year. GAAP operating income was $3.51 billion (33 percent of revenues), compared to $2.98 billion (35 percent of revenues) in 2010.

Google-owned sites generated $7.29 billion in revenue (69 percent of the total), a 29 percent jump over last year. Sites running Google’s ads generated $2.88 billion (27 percent fo the total), an annual increase of 15 percent.