On the heels of an executive shakeup that will put Larry Page in the CEO role and make Eric Schmidt executive chairman, Google reported earnings that saw a 29 percent increase in profits from last year.
Google reported revenue of $8.44 billion for the fourth quarter, a 26 percent increase from the same time period in 2009. Profit, meanwhile, landed at $2.54 billion, up from $1.97 billion in Q4 2009.
Google Sites generated about 67 percent of the total revenue at $5.67 billion, a 28 percent year-over-year increase. International revenue reached $4.38 billion, about 52 percent of total revenue.
During a Thursday conference call with investors, Google executives placed emphasis on display, YouTube, enterprise, and Android. YouTube revenue more than doubled, Google said, while the enterprise business added several new high-profile customers, like the General Services Administration.
Google also confirmed it is now activating 300,000 Android devices each day, a stat first shared by Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google, in early December via Twitter. That activity helped drive a 10x year-over-year increase in the volume of searches from Android devices, Google said.
During its Tuesday earnings call, Apple acting-CEO Tim Cook said Android tablets "lack performance specs, they lack prices, they lack timing, and so today they're vapor." During the Google call, co-founder Sergey Brin joked that he is working on new projects, but doesn't want to provide any details, lest he be accused of introducing vaporware. "I don't want to repeat that in the future," he said.
Google was also asked about its purchase of 111 Eighth Ave in Manhattan, a deal worth a reported $1.9 billion.
"I think our primary reason for purchasing the building ... was the office space that we really enjoy using," Schmidt said.
Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president for product management, said Google opted to buy the building because it was able to accomodate the growing number of Google employees in New York, currently at around 2,000. The building spans an entire city block, giving Google a lot of room on one floor. Moving to a skyscraper would leave it with a smaller footprint per floor, which would be "terrible for the culture," Rosenberg said.
Owning, meanwhile, "gives us a lot of control over growing into that space." But ultimately, "it's really about the Googly-ness" of the space, he said.
Also on its call, Google confirmed that all its employees received a 10 percent raise effective January 1. Google had previously said while that it doesn't "typically comment on internal matters, we do believe that competitive compensation plans are important to the future of the company."
Google now has 24,400 employees, up from 23,331 on September 30.