Google’s Revenue Up, Earnings Fall Short

Google has announced its first quarter financial results, revealing that its revenues increased by 27% — but earnings fell short of Wall Street estimates.
Google managed to generate $8.58 billion in revenue, an increase of 27% from the $6.78 billion it earned in the first quarter of 2010. Some 69% of its revenue came from Google-owned websites, while 28% of its revenue was generated via AdSense.

The company is still mostly global: 53%  of its total revenue came from international sources, almost identical to the 52% international revenue it generated in Q1 2010.
The search giant’s profits also increased. Google earned an operating profit of $2.8 billion, a 15% increase from its Q1 2010 earnings ($2.49 billion). That translates to an income of $8.08 per share. While that’s an increase from last year, Wall Street estimates had it at $8.12 per share.
As a result, shares of Google stock are currently down in after-hours trading. At the time of writing, Google shares were down 30.94 points to 547.57, a decline of 5.35%.
Why did Google miss the estimate? It’s partly due to increased costs for marketing, hiring and R&D. Research and development spending shot up by 50% to $1.23 billion, marketing costs skyrocketed by 69% to $1.03 billion, and stock-based compensation expenses rose by 48% to $432 million. Those giant bonuses last year are taking their toll on the company’s bottom line.
Google reported that it had 26,316 full-time employees as of March 31, up from 24,400 employees at the end of last year.