Google Q2 Earnings Beat Views, Shares Surge

Shares of Google Inc GOOGL jumped over 7 percent in after-hours trading after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter on Thursday. The Mountain View, California-based company posted quarterly net income of $3.9 billion, versus a year-ago profit of $3.4 billion. Excluding one-time items, the company's non-GAAP earnings climbed to $6.99 per share. Its total revenue rose 11 percent year-over-year to $17.73 billion from $16 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $6.71 per share on revenue of $17.75 billion. The average estimate among 142 Estimize users was for earnings of $6.77 per share and revenue of $14.39 billion. Total advertising revenue surged 11 percent from the year-ago quarter. Traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of advertising revenue shrank to 21 percent in the latest quarter, versus 23 percent in the year-ago quarter. Its paid clicks climbed 18 percent year-over-year in the latest quarter. "Our strong Q2 results reflect continued growth across the breadth of our products, most notably core search, where mobile stood out, as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising", said Ruth Porat, CFO of Google. "We are focused every day on developing big new opportunities across a wide range of businesses. We will do so with great care regarding resource allocation." Google shares rose 7.63 percent to $647.71 in the after-hours trading session.