Google's Q4 Revenue Climbs Almost $13B

Google's Q4 Revenue Climbs Almost $13B

Google's revenue climbed 22 percent to $12.91 billion in the fourth quarter, Reuters reported Tuesday.

The search giant consolidated its revenue to include the $14.42 billion in earnings from its Motorola Mobility mobile phone company.

The quarterly revenue posting did not include money from Motorola's television set-top business, which Google recently agreed to sell.

"We ended 2012 with a strong quarter," Larry Page, CEO of Google, said in a statement. "Revenues were up 36 percent year-on-year, and 8 percent quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."

The world's No.1 Internet search engine said consolidated net income in the fourth quarter was $2.89 billion or $8.62 per share, compared to $2.71 billion, or $8.22 per share, in the year-ago period, according to Reuters.

Shares rose 4.5 percent in after-hours trading following the release of the results.

Google said it earned $10.65 per share in the quarter.

However, the average cost-per-click, Google metric for the price advertisers pay for ads on the site, fell 6 percent from last year. That marked the fifth consecutive quarter of decline in price.

But Google's core business generated a net revenue of $9.83 billion in the fourth quarter, besting the same quarter last year, which came in at $8.13 billion.

And Motorola phone business suffered an operating loss of $353 million during the quarter.

"In today's multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit," Page said. "It's an incredibly exciting time to be at Google."

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