Nikesh Arora, chief business officer of Google, said that the revenue opportunity for mobile is “phenomenally high”, in what will be his last conference call for the company before heading off to SoftBank.

The executive said that with the increasing penetration of smartphones, “businesses and other websites take mobile very, very seriously”.

But noting that mobile “does not monetise as well as certain other forms”, he continued that “as people make it more and more relevant to be able to find information in the long term, mobile should be monetising even better than desktops”.

Google is facing a similar challenge to many other online players, in that as traffic moves from computers to mobile devices and smart TVs, revenue does not necessarily follow at the same pace.

“In today’s world, unlocking the mobile phone opportunity is absolutely key for every marketeer and we’re seeing tremendous amounts of momentum here. We’ve been building popular mobile app formats for years, like showcasing a businesses location, or click to call, etcetera,” he said.

As usual, Google did not break out mobile figures in its Q2 results, with Patrick Pichette, SVP and CEO, stating: “You start on mobile, you hop on tablet, you go to your desktop, you kind of come back to your television, you kind of Chromecast back to your TV, that’s the world in which we live.”

“What really matters is that you have the footprint across all of these devices and modes to actually deliver the best answer to our users, and that’s why you heard about I/O continuing to kind of expand that landscape,” he continued.

Google said that business head Arora is leaving after almost ten years, to become CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media and vice chairman of parent SoftBank.

Omid Kordestani, who was “our business founder and led our sales teams for many years”, will be stepping in to lead Google’s business organisation “for now”.

Pichette also made a passing reference to Motorola, stating that: “The team continues to be hard at work and we look forward to seeing them join with the Lenovo team soon. Motorola had a great Q2, with the Moto E and Moto G, both showing strong sales momentum especially in emerging markets.”

For the three months to 30 June, Google reported a profit of $3.42 billion, up 6 per cent year-on-year, on revenue of $15.96 billion, up 21.7 per cent.