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Christmas ads help Google beat slump
23.01.09
Google's search engine is sailing through its first recession as a public company.
The company last night beat analysts' expectations for fourth-quarter profit and grew advertising revenue by 22%.
It benefited from advertisers turning to the internet to promote products over the Christmas shopping period.
Net profit was $382.4 million (£278.3 million). That was down 68% from the same period the year and included a $1.09 billion writedown on investments in AOL and Clearwire Corp - a builder of high-speed internet services.
Overall spending in the US on ads linked to web-search results rose 21% last year, down from growth rates of 30% in 2007.
Revenue from Google's own sites increased 22% to $3.81 billion, accounting for about two-thirds of overall sales, the company said. Ad sales from Google's partner sites rose 3.5% to $1.69 billion.
As Google was unveiling its results, rival Yahoo announced a freeze on annual pay rises as it tries to cope with slowing online advertising.
Yahoo stock has fallen 43% in the past year.
