Forex Plays Part, but Only Part, in Mixed Google Earnings and Revenues

The king of Internet search was expected to report $6.60 in EPS and $17.52 billion in revenue. This compares to $6.27 EPS a year ago, and would have been a revenue gain of more than 13%.

Google ended the quarter with $65.436 billion in cash and equivalents. Also, Google did address foreign exchange. Yes, the company was among the myriad U.S. companies hit by a strong U.S. dollar impact on revenues. Google said:

Excluding hedging gains of $311 million related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the first quarter of 2014 through the first quarter of 2015, our revenues in the first quarter of 2015 would have been $795 million higher. Additionally, our constant currency revenue growth in the first quarter of 2015 was 17% year over year.

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Google does not offer guidance. Its source-by-source revenues are of course dependent on ad sales. 24/7 Wall St. has highlighted several key metrics from Google’s breakdown, with references to year-ago and sequential levels, as follows:

• Total ad revenue was $15.508 billion, up 11% from a year ago but down 5% sequentially.
• Google’s own websites had revenue of $11.932 billion, up 14% from a year ago but down 4% sequentially.
• Network member websites had revenue of $3.576 billion, up 1% from a year ago but down 8% sequentially.
• Google’s “other” revenue was $1.75 billion, up 23% from a year ago and down 2% sequentially.
• Aggregate paid clicks were up 13% from a year ago but down 1% sequentially.
• Paid clicks on Google websites were up 25% from a year ago but down 3% sequentially.
• Paid clicks on Google Network Members’ websites were down 12% from a year ago, but they were up 4% sequentially.
• The aggregate cost-per-click was down 7% from a year ago and down 5% sequentially.
• Cost-per-click on Google websites was down 13% from a year ago and down 3% from a year ago.
• Operating expenses (other than cost of revenues) were 37% or $6.455 billion, versus $5.344 billion or 35% a year ago.
• Total Headcount was 55,419, up from 46,710 a year ago.
• The effective tax rate was 22%, up from 18% a year ago.

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Google’s A shares closed up 1.5% at $557.46, and their 52-week trading range is $490.91 to $608.91. The consensus analyst price target is $622.92. The shares were trading up 3.5% at $577.40 about 30 minutes after its report.