Archive for January 21st, 2011

Google’s 4th quarter earnings (Ended 31 Dec 2010)

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Google reported a net income of US$2.54 billion (or US$7.81 per share) in the quarter ended 31 Dec. This is an increase of 29% from US$1.97 billion (or US$6.13 per share) in the quarter a year earlier.

Google IncProfit excluding some items was US$8.75 a share, exceeding the US$8.08 average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg, and exceeding the US$6.79 a share from the quarter a year earlier.

Sales of US$6.37 billion (excluding commissions paid to advertising partners) surpassed the US$6.06 billion average of estimates. This is up from US$4.95 billion from the preceding year.

According to ComScore, Android beat Apple’s iPhone in US smartphone subscribers for the first time in November, accounting for 26% of the market, compared with 25% for Apple. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion continued to lead with 33.5%.

In the search-engine business, Google continues to lead. In December, Google accounted for 66.6% of searches in the US (up from 66.2% in November) compared to a share of 28% (down from 28.2%)  from Microsoft and Yahoo combined. Yahoo began using Microsoft’s Bing technology for its online search in August.

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Google Co-founder Larry Page replaces Eric Schmidt as CEO

Friday, January 21st, 2011
As Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs hands over day-to-day running of the company to COO Tim Cook, Google announces in a shocker that its co-founder Larry Page will take over the reins of the company from chief executive Eric Schmidt.

As the new chief executive, 38-year-old Larry Page will “merge Google’s technology and business vision,” Schmidt said in a blog post. He is currently the president of products in Google.

What Larry's name card might look like

The 55-year-old Schmidt will be staying in Google as the Executive Chairman and serve as an advisor to Page and co-founder Sergey Brin. Schmidt will focus on external issues like “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership.”

37-year-old Sergey Brin, who is currently the president of technology, will focus on strategic projects, especially new products and assume the simple title of Co-Founder.

When Schmidt first joined Google in 2001, people in the Silicon Valley joked that the company was finally going to get some “adult supervision.” According to The New York Times, “neither Mr. Brin nor Mr. Page, the company’s co-founders, had much formal work experience in the technology industry besides the work they were doing at Google, which they started in 1998.” Neither of them has ever been the CEO of a public company.

Now, Schmidt writes on his Twitter account to some 225,000 followers that “Day-to-day adult supervision is no longer needed.”

Page will be helming a company with 24,000 employees – more than 100 times the 200 odd employees when Schmidt took over 10 years ago.

His challenges inlcude intense rivalry from Facebook, the world’s largest networking site founded in 2004, which boasts more than 500 million users. Google also competes with Apple in mobile advertising, and with Yahoo and Microsoft in its traditional search arena.

The management changeout was announced during the press release on Thursday of Google’s Q4 financial results, which beat forecasts by Wall Street analysts.

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