With increasing online ad sales, the fourth-quarter revenue of Internet search engine giant Google rose 67% and profit nearly tripled to more than a billion dollars. The Internet bellwether beat analysts' estimates with $1.03 billion in net earnings, or $3.29 per share, during the final three months of 2006. This was 67% higher than $372.2 million net income at the same time in 2005 and 19% higher than the third quarter in 2006."Our impressive performance in the fourth quarter demonstrates the continuing strength of our business model across Google properties and those of our partners," Google CEO Eric Schmidt yesterday said during a conference with analysts."Our growing organisation allows us to deliver ever increasing amounts of information and content to our users - both through investments in search and ads as well as through strategic partnerships," he added.Google closed out its fiscal year 2006 with 67% growth at just over $3.2 billion in revenue for the final quarter compared to $1.92 billion a year ago. Excluding traffic acquisition costs, or commission paid to content partners, the fourth-quarter revenue was $2.23 billion."Business continues to be very good here at Google. It turns out that we are gaining share in almost every country - our international business contributed a significant financial component," Schmidt said. (PTI)
