Google Inc. grew its paid clicks on ads across its sites and those in its advertising network by 26% year over year in the first quarter of 2014, ended March 31, the search engine giant announced this afternoon. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, which includes the holiday shopping season, clicks were down by 1%, it says.
Across all formats, Google reports that the average cost-per-click decreased by 9% year over year in the quarter, but stayed flat with Q4 2013. Total revenue was up by 19% in Q1 2014, to $15.42 billion from $12.95 billion in Q1 2013.
On Jan. 29 Google announced it was selling its smartphone business Motorola Mobility to PC maker Lenovo for approximately $2.91 billion. It had never turned a profit from the division since acquiring it in 2011 for about $12.5 billion. Google reported a net loss from discontinued operations of Motorola in Q1 2014 of $198 million, compared with $182 million in the first quarter of 2013.
For the first quarter, Google also reports:
- Net income of $3.452 billion, up 3.2% from $3.346 billion in Q1 2013.
- Google-owned sites, such as the Google.com search engine and YouTube, contributed $10.47 billion, or approximately 68% of revenue. That’s up 21.2% from $8.64 billion in the same period a year ago.
- A 4.3% year-over-year increase in Google network revenue, to approximately $3.40 billion from $3.26 billion the same period a year earlier. This is revenue Google receives from clicks on ads it places on the web sites of other companies, including retailers’ sites.
- Google’s traffic acquisition costs—that is, the amount Google pays to web sites that host Google ads—increased to $3.23 billion, up 9.1% year over year from $2.96 billion in Q1 2013.
- International revenue for Google segments, including from Google sites, networks and other activities like hardware sales, of $8.764 billion, representing 57% of Google’s total revenue in the quarter, compared with 55% in Q1 2013. The United Kingdom accounted for 10% ($1.58 billion) of total revenue, down slightly from 11% in Q1 2013.