Internet search leader Google announced last night that its quarterly profits more than quadrupled from a year ago to $342.8m as a surge in advertising helped revenues nearly double.
The red-hot Internet giant said overall revenues hit $1.38 billion in the quarter to June 30 compared with $700m the same time last year.
'We had an excellent quarter. We continued to innovate, we continued to execute and we stayed focused on our users,' said Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive officer. 'Google had another solid performance,' he added.
Excluding the payments Google makes to other companies for Internet traffic, the company reported sales of $890m, roughly within analysts' forecasts.
'This revenue increase reflects strong traffic and monetisation growth in the quarter as well as advertisers' growing recognition of the Internet as an effective advertising medium,' Google said.
However, shares of Google tumbled in after-hours trade as investors sifted through details of the report. Based on standard accounting the profit amounted to $1.19 a share. Although that figure may have special elements, it was below the average forecast of $1.21 a share.
Google shares plunged $20.68 in electronic trades to $293 after rising to $313.68 in regular trading. Still, the rise in Google has been spectacular since its offering debut at $85 last August.
