Google’s UK income returns to growth

Google’s income drawn from Britain jumped back up 7% to $765m between July and September (Q3), at least on a dollar basis.

There’s still no great barometer of Google’s UK ad sales here – it doesn’t report UK sales in British pounds. And a foreign exchange risk management scheme bettered Google’s revenue by $39m.

At constant currency rates, Google revenues would have been $166m lower. But this does mean a return to growth from the UK after last quarter’s fall.

CFO Patrick Pichette, in the earnings call, said: “In general, the UK continues to perform pretty well in the grand scheme of things. Given the tough economic environment that (they) have seen in the last little while, you would have thought there would have been a major pullback, but search continues to be the key vertical there.”

Pichette said “there are signs of increasing consumer confidence,” with travel advertising faring well.

The share of its total sales drawn from the UK fell slightly from to 13%, from 14% in the previous three months. And non-US revenue held steady at 53% of the overall, or $3.14m.

Overall, Google’s net revenue increased 8.4% to $4.38 billion during the quarter.

Related stories