Google has reported a profit of $2.79 billion in the second quarter, up 11 per cent over the same period of last year, in the company’s first financial statement since it finalized its acquisition of Motorola Mobility in May.
Motorola brought in $1.25 billion in revenue in the quarter that ended June 30, about 10 percent of Google’s total revenue. But Motorola also accounted for an operating loss of $233 million, which brought Google’s total operating income down as a percent of its revenue by six percentage points.
Google’s total revenue, including Motorola sales, was $12.21 billion compared to $9.02 billion a year earlier.
During a conference call to discuss the results, analysts asked Google executives what changes the company might make at Motorola. They declined to give specifics.
“Clearly, everybody should expect some changes at Motorola. We’re in the process of evaluating every division, but we need time to do our homework since we’ve only been there a few weeks,” said Nikesh Arora, Google’s senior vice president and chief business officer.
Google seems to be betting on expanding its foray into making devices.
In a statement, CEO Larry Page noted that the company had launched “a bunch of exciting products” at its recent I/O developers conference in San Francisco, including the Nexus 7 tablet.
“This quarter is also special because Motorola is now part of the Google family, and we’re excited about the potential to build great devices for users,” Page said.
Page, who the company said lost his voice about a month ago, did not participate in the earnings call.
Asked about Page’s health, Arora said, “There’s no new news on Larry. He’s lost his voice, so he can’t do any public speaking, but he continues to run the company, and he is here and involved in all the business decisions we’re making.”
Google’s advertising business remained strong, bringing in nearly $11 billion, a 21 percent increase year over year. But the company’s cost per click, or what it earns from advertisers per click, was down 16 percent from the same period of last year. The metric, which has been cause for some concern among financial analysts, did rise a single percentage point since the first quarter of this year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected Google to deliver earnings per share, excluding one-time items, of $10.04. Google delivered $10.12.
