Google last night reported that its profits surged 69% to $1 billion in the first three months of the year as revenues at the world's leading internet search company soared.
'The global growth of our core search and ads business and our focus on building our partnerships drove our strong results in the quarter,' said Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.
Google reported revenues of $3.66 billion for the quarter to the end of March, a 63% increase from the same quarter last year.
Advertising on Google's search engine drove revenues in the quarter, with international markets accounting for 47% of the income.
Use of Google.com was particularly strong in France, Britain, Spain and Germany and grew significantly in Ireland, Brazil and South Korea, the company reported.
But Google warned that profit margins could be squeezed as it invests heavily in data centres, servers, networking equipment and beefing up its army of engineers working on new products.
Last week Google announced a deal to buy internet advertising broker DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the acquisition would enable Google to more effectively target display and video advertisements online.
