Google’s stock price shot up immediately on Friday, rising nearly 15% following the previous day’s earnings call with new CFO Ruth Porat.
Porat announced profits that handily beat Wall Street estimates — second-quarter revenue totalled $14.35 billion, an 11% increase, resulting in a profit of $6.99 a share.
Google’s reported revenue of $14.35 billion is up from Wall Street’s estimated $14.28 billion. Revenue growth is largely credited to the strength of Google’s mobile ad business during the second quarter.
This comes at a time when investor confidence in the mobile ad division was on shaky grounds. Google’s soaring stock price is an indication that the company has renewed investor faith in mobile.
CFO Ruth Porat also credits higher-than-expected profit numbers with growth in search, and a YouTube audience that’s larger than ever:
“Our strong Q2 results reflect continued growth across the breadth of our products, most notably core search, where mobile stood out, as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising.”
YouTube set record-breaking numbers in the second quarter, with significant gains in mobile viewing.
Mobile viewers are now watching YouTube for an average of 40 minutes at a time, which is up 50 percent from last year’s average viewing session.
Overall, growth in YouTube “watch time” on YouTube is up 60 percent compared to last year. Despite YouTube’s record growth, Google’s CFO dodged the subject of YouTube’s profitability during yesterday’s earnings call.
According to Porat, Google intends to put its earnings toward conquering future challenges, such as preparing itself to compete with Apple’s foray into search later this year.
Image Credit: d8nn / Shutterstock.com
