Google's international revenue outstrips US for first time

by Tristan O'Carroll, Media Week 18-Jul-08, 10:55

LONDON - Google's international revenue surpassed its US sales for the first time during Q2 2008, as its UK revenue totalled $774m (£388m), representing 14% of worldwide revenue in Q2 2008.

Google's worldwide pre-tax profits for the second quarter of 2008, although they jumped 35% year-on-year to $1.25bn (£628m), were down 5% from Q1 2008, and consequently failed to meet analysts' expectations.

In late trading on Wall Street, its share price dipped by as much as 12% as a result.

International revenues, which remain key to sustaining Google’s growth as its US revenue growth gradually slows, totalled $2.8bn (£1.04bn), representing 52% of total revenues in the second quarter of 2008. As such, Google’s international revenues surpassed its US sales for the first time.

Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive, in a statement to accompany the results, said: Strong international growth as well as sustained traffic increases on Google's web properties propelled us to another strong quarter, despite a more challenging economic environment.

Google’s wholly owned websites generated revenues of $3.53bn (£1.77bn), or 66% of total global revenues, in the second quarter of 2008. This represents a 42% increase over second quarter 2007 revenues of $2.49bn (£1.25bn).

Meanwhile, revenues from Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.66bn (£833m), or 31% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2008.