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Company Spotlight: Google, Inc.

Google has reported a 68.3% decline in the fourth-quarter net income to $382.4m compared to $1.2 billion in the year-ago quarter, on revenue up 18.1% at $5.7 billion. Operating profit grew 29.1% to $1.86 billion from $1.44 billion in the same quarter last year. The company said advertising revenue grew 15.7% to $5.5 billion, with web site revenue rising 22.1% to $3.81 billion, and network web site revenue rising 3.5% to $1.69 billion. Licensing and other revenue rose to $196.3m compared to $69.3m a year ago. Geographically, non-US revenue totaled $2.86 billion, representing 50% of the total revenue compared to 48% last year. Revenue from the UK was $685m, 12% of total revenue compared to 16% in 2007. During the quarter, the company reported an impairment charge of $1.09 billion, including charges of $726m and $355m related to investments in AOL and Clearwire. For fiscal 2008, it reported a 0.6% increase in net income to $4.22 billion compared to $4.20 billion last year, on revenue up 31.3% at $21.8 billion. Operating profit grew 30.4% to $6.6 billion from $5.1 billion last year. Eric Schmidt, chief executive at Google, said: "Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment. Search query growth was strong, revenues were up in most verticals, and we successfully contained costs. It's unclear how long the global downturn will last, but our focus remains on the long term, and we'll continue to invest in Google's core search and ads business as well as in strategic growth areas such as display, mobile, and enterprise." Business Description Google is one of the leading internet search engines in the world. The company operates in the US, the UK and a large number of other countries. Google offers its services and products free of charge through Google.com and its 160 other international domains, such as Google.ba, Google.dm, Google.nr,...