Google has plenty of money to put toward its initiatives in music, social networking and elsewhere. On Thursday the company announced second-quarter revenue increased 32% year-over-year to a company record $9.03 billion. Operating income was $2.88 billion, or 32% of revenues. Net income was $2.51 billion, up from $1.84 billion in the prior-year period. Free cash flow was $2.6 billion.
The company’s stock was up 12.5% to $594.92 in midday trading Friday. Analysts had quickly bumped up their target prices and earnings estimates after Thursday’s release. Jeffries upped its target to $830 from $800 and Collins Stewart increased its target to $725 from $680, according to Reuters.
Thursday’s earnings call did not include any discussion specific to Google’s music initiatives, but there were many metrics applicable to the music industry: over 550,000 Android phones are being activated every day; a total of 135 million Android devices have been activated; YouTube gets over three billion views a day; and Google’s Chrome web browser has over 160 million users.
Music marketers should note the quick ascendance of Google+, the company’s new social network that launched two weeks ago. Google+ has over ten million users sharing and receiving over one billion items a day, CEO Larry Page revealed at the beginning of the earnings call. That comes out to 500 million daily shares by roughly 10 million users, or 50 shares per day per user. So it appears Google’s strategy of slowly releasing Google+ invitations has resulted in registrations by the heavy-use, early adopter crowd.
In addition, Page said the +1 button, Google’s version of the Twitter and Facebook buttons that allow instant sharing, is “being served 2.3 billion times a day.” Said Page, “Our goal at Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real-life, as well as improve the overall Google experience.”