Google Beats The Street In Q3 With $14.89B In Revenue, Net Income Of $2.97B, And EPS Of $10.74

Google’s Q3 2013 earnings report has just crossed the wires, and they’re better than expected. The company reported that over the past three months, it generated $14.89 billion in consolidated revenue and $2.97 billion in net income, as well as non-GAAP earnings of $10.74 per share.

According to Yahoo Finance, analysts expected the company to report about $14.8 billion in revenue for the quarter and earnings of $10.35 per share. Fortunately for the search and advertising giant, that’s a big change from last quarter. The company missed Wall Street’s EPS and revenue expectations during its last go-round.

Investors are already reacting to the news: Google’s share price at market close was 1 percent, but at time of writing it’s surged nearly six percent in after-hours trading.

More than a few people are keeping an eye on Google’s ad business, and more specifically the company’s cost per click. Online marketing firm The Search Agency reported the other day that it saw Google’s cost per click on the upswing, noting a 3.5 percent lift over the last quarter. Google’s new report points to something different though — specifically, it looks like CPC dipped 8 percent sequentially and 4 percent when compared to the year-ago quarter. That’s not exactly the sort of trend the company was looking to continue, as cost per click declined 6 percent sequentially back in Q2.

That advertising business is going to get a bit weirder in the coming weeks: Google has announced that it will use the photos and endorsements of its Google+ users to give some ads an extra boost of personal credibility. With that said, though, Google’s Enhanced Campaigns (which allow advertisers to devise a single ad campaign that can be deployed across multiple types of devices) should help the company cement its position in mobile. Meanwhile, Google’s paid clicks were up 26 percent year-over-year, and up 8 percent over the previous quarter.

This quarter also saw Google get a little bolder with hardware — its Motorola Mobility subsidiary released the customizable Moto X to generally positive reviews, and the curious $35 Chromecast dongle rocketed to the top of Amazon’s sales charts almost instantly. If anything, the former is a hair more interesting since the Motorola division has been posting loss after loss for the past few quarters, as well as dramatically trimming its headcount in a bid to cut costs. For now Motorola’s staff count seems to be holding steady, but the division only raked in $1.18 billion in revenue (or 8 percent of the total revenue pie) and reported a considerable $248 million operating loss.

Google Beats The Street In Q3 With $14.89B In Revenue, Net Income Of $2.97B, And EPS Of $10.74