Google executives touched on the company’s mobile strategy during its first quarter results call yesterday, when the Internet search giant posted a 37 percent rise in earnings and a 23 percent jump in revenue. For the period ended March 31, 2010, Google reported revenues of US$6.77 biilion, compared to US$5.51 billion in the year-ago quarter. Net income increased to US$1.96 billion from US$1.42 billion in the first quarter of 2009. The company said it has performed “very well” in the first quarter of 2010 as an improving economy and the return of large advertisers drove growth.

Jeff Huber, SVP for engineering, said on a conference call with analysts that Google’s Android system is powering 34 devices and that more than 60,000 Android devices are sold and activated each day. Android also had 38,000 apps in the quarter, up 78 percent from the last quarter. Taking a shot at Apple, Huber said that Google believes “in open platforms and encourage[s] everyone else” to do the same. One goal with Android, he said, is to get more people using smart mobile operating systems and seeing more mobile ads. Indeed, Susan Wojcicki, Google’s VP for product management, declared mobile as an area that Google sees as hugely important: “We want to make it easier for users to expand their existing campaigns to mobile rather than starting from scratch.” The company declined, however, to answer a question on what percentage of revenue comes from mobile advertising. The comments came as Google is facing a review from the US Federal Trade Commission of its purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob (a deal Google is convinced will go through). Analysts also asked about the success of its own-brand Nexus One devices, which has reportedly experienced poor sales. CFO Patrick Pichette said Nexus One is “a profitable business for us”, whilst Jeff Huber added that the company is “very happy with the device uptake and the kind of impact that’s had across the industry in terms of raising the bar for what devices can do.” Google ended the call by saying it is working with manufacturers to build more Android products in the fall.