Google Earnings Up

With one good quarter and one major product launch under his belt, new Google CEO Larry Page showed his face — or at least his voice — on Wall Street today.

For Google’s quarterly earnings call with analysts, Page offered some prepared remarks (and then immediately posted them on his Google+ account!), delivering notable benchmarks including 10 million Google+ users registered in just two weeks, 550,000 Android device activations per day, and 160 million users for Chrome.

Wall Street expected $6.54 billion in revenue and $7.87 worth of earnings per share, so after-hours trading immediately drove Google shares up more than 10 percent, where they stayed throughout the earnings call.

Shareholders and analysts (and reporters, too!) especially wanted to hear from Page himself, which Google acknowledged (you get the sense Google CFO Patrick Pichette was particularly grateful to have his boss on hand).

Here’s Page’s bubbly comment for the press release: “We had a great quarter, with revenue up 32% year on year for a record breaking over $9 billion of revenue. I’m super excited about the amazing response to Google+ which lets you share just like in real life.”

Some more financial specifics: Google continues to grow headcount fast, as it said it planned to do. It effectively added 2,452 employees in the second quarter, plus 450 more through its ITA acquisition.

Just a few categories were down marginally from previous periods: non-GAAP income was 37 percent of revenues, compared to 39 percent a year ago. And paid clicks were down 2 percent from the first quarter of this year, though cost per click was up 6 percent.

Previously, Google’s stock price had not been happy since Larry Page retook the CEO role and missed earnings (both the numbers and most of the analyst call), though recently shares had been boosted by the launch of Google+.

Page: “It’s really exciting to be on the call today and share directly with you the progress we’ve made in my first quarter as CEO.”

Page: “The growth of Google+ has been great and I’m excited to share numbers.” Ten million members, over 1 billion items shared and received per day and +1 buttons served 2.3 times around the web per day.

Back in the day, nobody believed search would grow, Page says, but with businesses like Android and Chrome “it feels like we’re watching the same movie again [sped up].”