Google Profits Double, Helped by Non-US Expansion, Online Ad Demand

Like Yahoo! before it, Google announced a significant increase in Q1 revenues. Profits were US$369.2 million on revenues of US$1.26 billion (vs. revenues of US$651 million in Q1 last year), beating analysts' expectations.

Growth appeared to be driven in part by international expansion. Here's the full release with financial data.

The revenues break down as follows:

Google-owned sites generated US$657 million or 52% of total revenues. Non-Google-owned sites (the "Google Network") were responsible for US$584 million, or 47% of total revenues. On a percentage basis, Google-owned sites outperformed non-Google-owned network sites.

Here's another interesting bit from the release: "Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $462 million. This compares to total payments to partners of $271 million in the first quarter of 2004." Expect those numbers to continue to increase with intensifying competition.

The overwhelming bulk of Google's revenues come from online advertising (paid search and content targeting). To continue generating this kind of growth, Google will need over the long term to diversify revenues and keep developing new markets (international and local), as well as new products.