"Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said. Schmidt credited Google's management team, innovative talent, and business model as building blocks for the stellar final months of 2009.
"As we enter 2010, we remain hugely optimistic about the Internet and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit not only of our users and customers, but also the wider Web," Schmidt said. In what could be good news for the economy and bode well for other Internet companies, Google saw a 13-percent increase in "paid clicks" on ads posted at its online properties.
While Google tightly managed its budget through the economic meltdown, it feels the time is ripe to acquire promising new companies or technologies, according to executives. "The pace of deals in Q4 shows that we're at least on a path of one per month and we should expect that to continue, some big, more small than big probably," Schmidt said during an earnings conference call. Google reported that it finished 2009 with 24.5 billion dollars in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term marketable securities.
About 53 percent of Google's revenue for the quarter came from outside the United States, a development that could shine an even harsher spotlight on the Internet giant's threat to pull out of China over online censorship. Google-style capitalism with a conscience is butting heads with China's brand of communism.
Google has vowed to stop bowing to Chinese online censorship that came as a legal condition when the California technology firm tailored a search engine for that country in 2006. The impetus for the stand was China-spawned cyber espionage that recently targeted Google and other firms.