Google smashes Q3 expectations with $9.7B in revenue

Search giant Google brought in $9.72 billion in the third quarter this year — or $7.5 billion minus traffic acquisition costs. That amount crushed consensus Wall Street analyst estimates of $7.23 billion, and is a 33 percent increase from the same quarter one year ago.

Google brought in $2.73 billion in income off that revenue in the third quarter this year, up from $2.17 billion in net income the same quarter a year earlier. Google’s traffic acquisition costs were $2.21 billion in the third quarter of 2011, compared to $1.81 billion in the third quarter of 2010.

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The search giant’s newest social network, Google+, now has more than 40 million users, Google chief executive Larry Page said.

Google recently purchased Motorola Mobility, which makes phones sporting Google’s Android mobile operating system, for $12.5 billion. That acquisition, which regulators have not yet approved, also carries with it a treasure trove of mobile phone patents. Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said Google did not acquire Motorola Mobility for the patents, but rather for the team, at Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco in August.

“We actually believe the Motorola team has amazing products,” he said. “We like having at least one area where we can do integrated hardware.”

Google’s share of overall online ad spending is expected to grow to 40.8 percent this year, up from 38.5 percent in 2010 and 34.9 percent in 2009, according to estimates from market research firm eMarketer. Facebook’s share of the overall US online ad market will reach 6.4 percent in 2011, up from 4.6 percent in 2010. Yahoo’s share of overall US online ad revenues will decline to an 11 percent share this year, down from 13.3 percent in 2010.

Google’s share of overall U.S. search ad revenues will grow to 75.9 percent this year, up from a 73.6 percent share in 2010 and a 69.8 percent share in 2009, according to eMarketer. That’s despite a large charge from Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine. Microsoft’s share of overall US search ad revenues is expected to grow to 8 percent this year, when the company will bring in an estimated $1.15 billion in net US search ad revenues, up 38.9 percent from $828 million and a 6.9 percent share of the total market in 2010. Google will pull most of its new ad share from Yahoo, whose share will drop to 7.9 percent this year from 10.7 percent in 2010.

Google now has 31,353 full-time employees as of the end of the company’s most recent operating quarter, up from 28,768 employees at the end of the second quarter.