Google revenues surge 17%

It seems that global economic slowdown has yet to reach the sunny vistas of California’s Mountain View with news that Google’s revenues enjoyed a year-on-year increase of 17 per cent for the quarter ending December 31st 2009.

Total revenues hit $6.67bn for the period, up from the $5.7bn in the same period a year before.

Profit was up even more sharply at $1.97bn. In 2008 that figure was just $382m, but that is mostly due to a one-off $1bn related to investments in internet service provider AOL and wireless firm Clearwire.

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said of the news: Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year.”