Google posts 17 per cent revenue growth

Google has beaten analyst expectations with strong fourth-quarter sales

Google has reported strong sales during the fourth quarter of 2009, with revenue up 17 per cent on the same period last year.

The search firm posted revenue of $6.67bn (£4.12bn) for the quarter ending 31 December, compared with $5.7bn (£3.5bn) last year.

Revenues from the UK totalled $772m (£476m), representing 12 per cent of Google's fourth-quarter figures.

Global profit during the quarter reached $1.97bn (£1.21bn), or $6.13 (£3.80) a share, a significant increase on the last quarter of 2008 when the company made $382m (£235m), or $1.21 (74p) a share.

Google profited from a growing number of customers clicking on its internet search advertisements. Paid clicks related to advertisements served on Google sites and the sites of its AdSense partners increased by 13 per cent on last year.

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

"Our performance in 2009 underscored the strength of our management team, the resilience of our business model and the pace of innovation within our product and engineering teams, which continued unabated throughout the downturn.

"As we enter 2010 we remain hugely optimistic about the internet, and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit of our users and customers and the wider web."

Google's results beat analyst expectations, and are likely to dampen investor concerns over its threat to pull out of China.

Google has said that it will "reconsider" its presence in China if the government continues to insist that search engine results are censored.