Google's average search-ad price continues to fall.
The "cost-per-click" or price advertisers paid Google every time someone clicked on an ad in its search engine fell 6% year-on-year in the search giant's June quarter, worse than the 4% year-over-year drop in prices during the first quarter. Analysts had expected a 3% fall.
Google's cost-per-click has been falling steadily since the fourth quarter of 2011.
Analysts pin the decline on the rise of mobile devices. With cellphone data caps tight and connections often slow, people are less likely to want click on an ad when using a mobile - that fat thumbs mean unintentional click rates are high, and advertisers accordingly want to pay less.
Google recently said 900 million smartphones and tablets have been activated that run its Android software (which delivers ads through apps such as search, Gmail, YouTube and Maps). A year ago, around 400 million had been activated.
Despite the decline in the average price of its adds, Google's overall income grew strongly.
Second-quarter net profit was $US3.23 billion up from $US2.79 billion a year earlier.
Revenue rose by 19% to $US14.11 billion in the second quarter.
Google's headcount was 44,777 at the end of June, down from 53,891 at the end of March.
The decline was attributable to layoffs at Motorola earlier this year. Google bought the cellphone business for its treasure trove of patents - a valuable tool in the Android camp's ongoing legal war with Apple.
NBR staff
Sat, 20 Jul 2013
Sat, 20 Jul 2013
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