Google Q4 earnings disappoint, shares down 10 per cent

Google has suffered the rare indignity of falling below Wall Street expectations after announcing its earnings for Q4 2011.

Company stock dropped a whopping ten per cent in after-hours trading after reporting net revenue of $8.13 billion (£5.25bn) and $9.50 (£6.13) in earnings per share.

While those figures still put the company in a position to be envied by almost every other publicly traded entity in the world, Wall Street was expecting more. Experts had predicted $8.40 billion in net revenue and $10.49 in earnings per share.

Not everything is bad, although it's rare that Google misses the mark, the company is heralding it's first $10 billion+ quarter, before "traffic acquisition costs." and a 25 per cent gain on the corresponding quarter in 2010.

The company also announced that there are now 90 million registered Google+ users on planet earth, which is up from the 30 million it reported during the last earnings cool. However, how many of those 90 million are actively using Google+ is a different matter altogether.

Google’s headcount grew from 31,353 last quarter to 32,467 — an increase of 1,114.

There will be an earnings conference call with Google execs beginning at 4:30 PM EST; stay tuned for more posts with our coverage of any further details revealed by Larry Page and company.

                                                                                                 Source: http://www.techradar.com