Google on Tuesday evening published its fourth-quarter 2012 earnings report, posting $14.42 billion in consolidated revenues for the three-month period, up 36 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011. Minus Google’s costs, income ended up $2.89 billion, $8.62 per share (diluted).
But excluding items, earnings-per-share was $10.65, which beat Wall St. analysts’ expectations of $10.42, as CNBC reported. Still, Google failed to meet overall revenue projections including the sale of its Motorola Home unit.
Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page also spoke on the quarterly earnings call, taking analysts questions on everything from Google Maps to Android to Motorola to China, where Google said it now does earn some money through Android sales, after famously pulling Web search out of the mainland over censorship issues in 2010 (China also routinely blocks many Google sites and services). Page’s voice during the call was conspicuously gravely and hoarse, much as it sounded on the last call in October 2012. The company said in July 2012 that the Google boss had “lost his voice,” but hasn’t provided an update on his health status since.
Check out the first part of the transcript of Page’s introductory speech on the earnings call below, and read it its entirety on his Google Plus profile page:
Happy New Year everyone and welcome to our earnings call. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.
We ended 2012 with a strong quarter. Revenue was up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenue for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half.
We’ve talked a lot about excellence and velocity over the last year. While many claim it’s my nature never to be satisfied, we’ve actually made real progress creating more beautiful and more intuitive products.
Take Search. The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean, and give you exactly what you want. Our Knowledge Graph brings that much closer.
Search for Nikola Tesla and you’ll get information about this great inventor that is beautifully displayed right from the results page … his basic bio, books he wrote, his photo – no extra work needed. We’ll even recommend information about other inventors such as Edison and Marconi that you can easily browse through … again right from the results page.
And last quarter we launched the Knowledge Graph in seven new languages – including Spanish, Japanese and Russian. This is hard work. It’s about way more than translating the words on the page. Google has to understand millions of different entities, as well as their meaning and context.
I’m also excited about the progress we’ve made with Voice Search. You’re in your car – sadly it’s still a car you have to drive and it’s not electric – and you’re running out of gas. Just pick-up your phone and ask Google for “directions to the nearest gas station” – and you’ll be on your way immediately. It’s a great example of how we can take the hassle right out of your life.
Our long-term investments in Google Maps have really paid off. The team has worked tremendously hard to create the most accurate and comprehensive maps in the world. Driving country-by-country may have seemed crazy a few years back. Today, it’s totally obvious because location is core to your search experience.
And with Google Maps for iOS, we’ve reinvigorated our product. It’s more intuitive and beautiful, and users love it. Google Maps for iOS was downloaded over 10 million times in the first 48 hours!
In fact, six Google apps were included in Apple’s App Store Best Free Apps of 2012: including YouTube, Chrome, Google Search and Gmail.
I’ve always believed that computers should do the hard work – so you can get on with the things that matter in life … living, learning and loving…
