Internet search engine Google has reported a five-fold jump in net income at $1.97 billion in October-December quarter, driven by robust sales figure due to rebound in advertising market.
In the year-ago period, the company had a net income of $382 million, Google said in a statement.
Google's sales clocked a double digit growth in the quarter under review as revenue rose by 17 per cent to $6.67 billion.
"Google had a strong fourth quarter, with 17 per cent year-over-year revenue growth. Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year," Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said.
The company's sales boosted on the back of a rebound in advertising market. Advertisers paid 5 per cent more per click on ads served on Google's website in the fourth quarter compared to what they paid a year ago.
Google's revenue from paid clicks on ads served on it's websites went up 13 per cent from last year.
Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.42 billion, or 66 per cent of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to $3.81 billion in the year-ago period.
Google posted a net income of $6.52 billion for the year 2009 compared to $4.22 billion in 2008. The company's revenue increased to $23.65 billion in last year from $21.79 billion in 2008.
"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," Schmidt added.
He further said that the company remain hugely optimistic about the Internet and would continue to invest heavily in technological innovation.
In terms of geographical locations, the company has witnessed robust growth in revenues from outside the US. Google's revenues from outside of the US totalled $3.52 billion, representing 53 per cent of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Revenues from the UK stood at $772 million, contributing to 12 per cent of overall revenues in the quarter ended December 31, 2009.
