Google’s Q4 profit jumps 17% even as web giant struggles with weaker ad prices

Google’s quarterly profit jumped 17% even as the company continued to grapple with sliding prices for its online ads. The web search giant said on Thursday its consolidated revenue, which includes the Motorola smartphone business it recently agreed to sell, jumped 17% from the year-earlier period to $16.9 billion, topping analysts’ expectations. Sales in its core web business rose 22%. Its net income for the fourth quarter also surged, climbing 17% to $3.38 billion — although minus certain items its profit came in below Wall Street’s average forecast. Google has been struggling for a while to counteract the lower prices advertisers are generally willing to pay to market on smartphones and tablets vs. personal computers. Its problems continued in the fourth quarter, with the average price of ads falling 11%. At the same time, though, its total number of paid ad clicks jumped 31% from the prior year as its technology gets better at targeting ads at users most likely to be interested in them. Revenue at Google’s Motorola business, which produces its Moto X smartphone, dropped 18% to $1.24 billion. Google said on Wednesday it is selling the money-losing Motorola unit to PC maker Lenovo for $3 billion after… Read full this story

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