Google revealed yesterday that its mobile business is now generating revenue at a run rate of US$8 billion a year.

This is up from the US$2.5 billion figure given a year ago, but also now includes sales generated from Android’s Google Play store as well as mobile advertising income.
 
“This time last year, I announced that our run-rate for mobile advertising hit US$2.5 billion. That seemed like a pretty big number even for Google. But now we have built up additional mobile revenue from users paying for content and apps in Google Play,” explained Google CEO Larry Page.

“We’ve been investing in this space for a long, long time. Our mobile monetisation is not zero, it’s a very significant number,” he added.  

The firm did not break out the specific contributions to the US$8 billion, though CFO Patrick Pichette noted that the “vast majority” still relates to mobile display ads.

Google reported consolidated revenue of US$14.10 billion for Q3, up 45 percent from a year earlier – but net income was down 20 percent to US$2.18 billion.

The figures were below most Wall Street expectations, and trading in Google’s shares had to be suspended briefly yesterday after the financials were mistakenly issued early.

The recently-acquired Motorola business was seen as a drag on Google’s earnings. The handset unit generated US$2.8 billion revenue in the quarter (18 percent of Google’s total) but posted a US$527 million operating loss.