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Google stock buy-back: You'll groan when you realize where that $5,099,019,513.59 figure came from

Your 30-second guide to ad giant's third quarter financials

Internet advertising giant Google is still banking boatloads of ad cash, and plans to buy back billions in stock.

The Mountain View goliath said its mobile advertising revenues were particularly strong over the previous three months, as it saw gains in the number of clicks on banners.

Here are the top GAAP stats and facts from the Chocolate Factory's financial results for Q3 2015, which ended September 30:

  • Net revenue for the quarter was $18.7bn (£12.15bn), up 13 per cent from $16.5bn (£10.72bn) on the same quarter last year.

  • Net income was $3.9bn (£2.53bn), up 44 per cent from $2.7bn (£1.75bn) on the year-ago quarter.

  • Earnings per share will be $5.73. The non-GAAP value of $7.35 beat analyst estimates of $7.21 (non-GAAP) and is up from $6.25 in the year-ago quarter.

  • As usual, advertising was the overwhelming majority of Google's revenues this quarter, accounting for $16.78bn. All other Google businesses accounted for just $1.8bn. Google-branded websites and services brought in $13.1bn in sales, while the Adsense network brought in $3.7bn. Mobile ad clicks were up 23 per cent on Q3 2014.

  • Expenses included traffic acquisition costs reached $3.6bn, and other operational costs (such as building and running data centers) reached $3.2bn.

  • Alphabet, the new parent of Google, said it plans to buy back $5,099,019,513.59 in Google stock. For those wondering, 5.09901951359 is the square root of 26, and 26 is the number of letters in the alphabet. That's the sort of thing you can do when you have more money than God.

  • Alphabet said it plans to separate Google from its other businesses (such as Nest, for example) and, going forward, will report two different sets of numbers, those for Google and those for the non-Google "Other Bets" pack of companies.

In revealing the numbers, Alphabet execs noted that Google products have hit a number of user milestones, including over one million Apps for Work customers and an average of 30,000 Chromebooks being activated in schools every day.

"With six products now having more than 1 billion users globally, we're excited about the opportunities ahead of Google, and across Alphabet," said chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

The news failed to turn heads on Wall Street one way or the other. Google stock was up by a modest 1.43 per cent at the end of the day, trading at $651.79 per share. ®

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