Google quarterly profit drops 20%

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Google on Thursday reported that its profit fell about 20 percent in the third quarter of 2012, which disappointed investors and sent the company's stock down.

Google's net income in the quarter was 2.18 billion U.S. dollars, compared to 2.73 billion dollars in the same period a year earlier.

The Internet search giant posted consolidated revenue of 14.1 billion dollars, an increase of 45 percent year over year.

Excluding items, it earned 9.03 dollars per share, down from 9. 72 dollars in the year-ago quarter. Excluding traffic acquisition costs paid to partners that direct traffic to Google's websites, revenue was 11.33 billion dollars.

The two adjusted numbers missed estimates by analysts, who according to a survey by Thomson Reuters, expected the company to report earnings excluding items of 10.65 dollars per share on net revenue of 11.86 billion dollars.

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