Just as it happens every new year, all the biggest names on the web are showing off their own accomplishments from 2012, assuring online marketers of things to come for 2013. Now, the company that everyone pays the closest attention to, Google has released its revenue numbers from the fourth quarter and from the entire fiscal year of 2012. Just as one would probably expect, Google’s revenue results blow most others out of the water, with quarterly revenues staying well into the billions. Their recent announcement of revenue numbers includes for the fourth quarter revenue from the Motorola Home property that Google recently sold, and the actual numbers themselves reflect consolidated revenues.
In 2011, the entire year’s revenue from Google came to a grand total of $37.9 billion while in 2012, the number rose to $50.2 billion. The $12.3 billion increase year over year should cause marketers great excitement, being that Google continues to grow despite its already incredible standing in the digital marketing world.
From Google’s announcement:
We ended 2012 with a strong quarter,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half. In today’s multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Google.
Google revenues hit $12.91 billion, which comes out to 89% of the consolidated revenues for Q4. When compared to Q4 of 2011, that is a 22% increase from $10.58 billion. As for sites owned by Google, they generated $8.64 billion, making up 67% of Google’s total revenues for Q4. In 2011, this number was only at about $7.29 billion. Partner sites of Google generated about $3.44 billion in revenues, making up 27% of Google’s total revenues in Q4, while they generated only $2.88 billion in 2011. Finally, revenues categorized as “other” generated $829 million, which only makes up 6% of total Google revenues in Q4. However, that makes up a 102% increase year over year.
As for the more performance based aspects in the company’s revenue announcement, paid clicks were up 24% in Q4 2012 when compared to Q4 2011. On a different note, the average CPCs went down 6% year over year in Q4 of 2012. The costs of acquiring traffic were $3.08 billion for the final quarter of 2012, which increased from $2.45 billion year over year.
With all this said, I feel it is easy to say that Google has not ceased to impress marketers with their incredible numbers. The company has hit a milestone with 2012, hitting the $50 billion mark for the first time. Such growth with a company like Google shows that marketers can put their trust into it no matter what, and that some sort of success will continue to come of advertising with Google.
