Google's fourth quarter profit nearly triples

Google’s fourth quarter profits for 2006 was nearly triple that of 2005. The search engine giant made $1.03 billion or $3.29/share from $3.2 billion in revenue. This is a huge jump from the 4Q 2005 profit of $372.2 million or $1.22/share.

The profit exceeded most analysts’ expectations of $2.92/share profit. Despite this, share prices closed down slightly to $501.50 per share. Google’s $3.2 billion fourth quarter revenue was up 67% from the same time period in 2005. Some of Google’s success comes from the international market. Nearly 44 percent of sales come from outside the United States which is up from 38 percent in 2005.

Google also divulged that it is sinking around $367 million into infrastructure, including new computers and data centers. The company has purchased tremendous amounts of dark fiber, unused communications links, at rock bottom prices in the past few years. This extra available bandwidth could help power video distribution or even an alternative, possibly free, Internet service.