Google Reports $12 Bil In Consolidated Revenue

Patrick-Pichette-AGoogle reported $12 billion -- up 35% sequentially -- in consolidated revenue for Q2 2012, which includes a sub-period for Motorola. Remove traffic acquisition and revenue from acquisition and the company generated $8.3 billion.

The company's owned-and-operated sites pulled in $7.5 billion -- up 21% compared with Q2 2011, contributing 69% of Google's revenue. Partner sites generated $3 billion in revenue -- or 27% -- in the second quarter of 2012, representing a 20% increase from second quarter of 2011.

Improved support in Sitelinks, AdMob's integration into AdWords, and expanded match for keyword variances contributed to Google's positive quarter earnings. Advertisers taking advantage of exact and phrase matching continue to see on average a 3% increase in clicks, according to Google CFO Patrick Pichette during the company's Q2 2012 earnings call.

Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of members, rose 42%, compared with the second quarter of 2011 and increased 1% sequentially. The average cost-per-click fell 16%, compared with the year-ago quarter, and rose 1% sequentially.

While CPCs remains an important metric, analyzed independently it's not a clear indication of the business's health, according to Google.

Among the successes for the quarter, YouTube seems to have found its business model in Q2. The company will power NBC's live streaming of the Olympics in the U.S. Users now upload 72 hours of video per minute. A new study from Pew Center shows that site visitors want news, especially for videos of major events and natural disasters.

Google also reported that Motorola Mobility brought in $1.2 billion in revenue, with $843 million from the mobile segment and $407 million from the home segment. Its operating loss was $233 million.

Google's quality team made 72 ad improvement to improve monetization, Pichette said.

There are more than 1 million Android devices activated every day; and there are about 400 million Android devices worldwide and 310 million Chrome users worldwide. About 250 million users have signed up for Google+ and have access to search for more than 100 million places.

Microsoft also reported earnings Thursday. Its online service department, which includes Bing, rose 12% in advertising revenue, driven by search improvement.

During Yahoo's earnings call earlier in the week, Tim Morse, company CFO, said search queries continue to rise, despite the numbers reported by comScore. Revenue from display grew 1%, compared with the year-ago quarter, reversing declines in the past two consecutive quarters. Search grew 4% driven by 7% improvement on Yahoo's owned-and-operated sites. O&O search query volume grew slightly globally, and generated higher gains for revenue per search (RPS).

Yahoo executives, however, were unable to report better RPS gains from the Microsoft Search Alliance, but the company continues to benefit from the agreement's RPS guarantee.

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