NEW YORK—Google Inc. announced on Thursday that the company’s fiscal first quarter profits soared to $2.89 billion, on revenues of $10.65 billion, a 24 percent increase from the same quarter in 2011.
The company said that its board also authorized a unique stock dividend, which it calls a “two-for-one stock split,” which preserves its current control structure. The stocks would comprise a new class of stock which is non-voting.
Of the $10.65 billion in revenues, 69 percent came from advertising driven from Google websites, while 27 percent came from the websites of Google’s business partners. Fifty-four percent of the company’s revenues were generated outside of the United States. Total revenues were roughly in line with Wall Street estimates.
While revenues were high, the company’s cost per click continued to decline, dropping for a second quarter in a row, down 6 percent from the prior quarter.
The quarter “saw tremendous momentum from the big bets we’ve made in products like Android, Chrome and YouTube. We are still at the very early stages of what technology can do to improve people’s lives and we have enormous opportunities ahead,” said CEO Larry Page in a statement Thursday. “It is a very exciting time to be at Google.”
Page completed a one-year run as CEO at the company he co-founded. Former CEO Eric Schmidt is chairman of the board of directors. The past year has been a momentous one for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, as Google announced a $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Inc., and set up its own social networking website, Google+, to challenge Facebook Inc. The Motorola acquisition has been approved by regulators, but has yet to close.
Page has also cut back on extraneous projects at the company and focused resources in other areas. “This has involved a lot of clean-up. We’ve given many of our products including search, a visual refresh so they now have a more consistent look and feel,” Page said on a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
Investors will keep an eye on how the public responds to the stock dividends—which already sent Google shares higher in after-hours trading—especially compared with rival Apple’s recent announcement of a cash dividend.
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