eWeek: Google’s Q1 Profits Drop with Recession
Google is so terribly profitable that a drop in *profits* is news when it comes to the Sultan of Search. And it’s not even a decline from Q1 last year, it is simply a decline from last quarter. It was below expectations, however, which is what matters on Wall Street.
Google reports a decline in earnings for the first quarter of 2009, as the global recession took its toll even on the search engine giant. Despite the state of the economy, Google continues to compete vigorously against Yahoo and Microsoft in the search arena while producing new products and investing in initiatives such as Google Ventures.
Google reported revenues of $5.51 billion for the first quarter of 2009, which represents a 6 percent increase over first-quarter 2008 revenues—but also represents a 3 percent decline from fourth-quarter 2008 revenues of $5.70 billion.
“You look at the economic situation, we’re still in uncharted territory,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said during an April 16 earnings call with financial analysts. “Google is absolutely feeling the impact.”
You can read the rest of the story at eWeek.com.
