Google’s $8B Earnings Overshadowed By Leadership Change

Google just announced Q4 and full year 2010 earnings. They also dropped the bombshell that Larry Page would be taking over as CEO, with Eric Schmidt becoming “executive chairman.” Danny Sullivan has more on that development.

In Q4 Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion, 26 percent growth vs a year ago. Full year revenues exceeded $29 billion. Google-owned sites generated revenues of $5.67 billion, or 67% of total revenues. Partner sites (AdSense) generated $2.5 billion (30% of total revenues).

International revenues were $4.38 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in Q4:

• Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $878 million, representing 10% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• In the fourth quarter of 2010, we recognized a benefit of $25 million to revenues through our foreign exchange risk management program, compared to $8 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Paid Clicks increased approximately 18% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 11% over the third quarter of 2010. Average cost-per-click increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2009.

Traffic Acquisition Costs increased to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 25% in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Here are a few of the earnings slides:

See also: Eric Schmidt Stepping Down, Cofounder Larry Page To Be Google CEO