Mobile is a $1 billion business for Google

While it may be true that mobile only contributes to a small share of Google Inc.’s (GOOG) treasure, it’s still grown to a $1 billion annual business.
The company reported $2.17 billion in profits on $7.29 billion in revenues during the last quarter. Revenues were up 23% from a year ago when it brought in $5.94 billion and profits were up 32% from $1.64 billion in the year-ago period.
Calling Android “probably the largest single platform play available in the market today,” CEO Eric Schmidt said the operating system has already surpassed “anything that I had ever hoped for.” He went on to say that Android is bigger than the PC market because “if you think of mobile as phone plus tablet, plus all the other things, we hope to become the leading platform in that space.”
Google’s business objective with Android, of course, is to drive new search revenue and charge for premium services that it makes available over the top of the OS. Android users already make twice as many search queries as their smart-phone counterparts, he added as he made sure to point out that mobile for Google will be “very lucrative.”
But what mobile does for Google already today is nothing to sneeze at. “They people who are accessing our products and services through their mobile phones are adding $1 billion to our revenue streams,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP of product management. Mobile search for Google has grown fivefold over the past several years, he added.
As is often the case of late, Google continued to beat Wall Street expectations with its latest results and stock was up a staggering 10.76% at one point this morning as it pushes near the $600 per share mark.