Google (GOOG) was falling nearly 9% this afternoon after its third-quarter earnings report, and the shares were halted.
The results were expected after hours but were published early in an SEC report. Google reported a profit of $2.18 billion, or $6.53 a share, compared with $2.73 billion, or $8.33 a share, for the year-earlier period. The company said it earned $9.03 a share on an adjusted basis on revenue (excluding taxes) of $11.33 billion. The consensus was for the company to earn $10.65 on revenue of $11.87 billion.
Google said that aggregate paid clicks increased 33% year-over-year and increased 6% over the second quarter. Average cost-per-click decreased 15% year-over-year and decreased 3% quarter-over-quarter.
The company broke down Motorola revenues of $2.58 billion, with $1.78 billion coming from the mobile segment and $797 million from the home segment.
Network revenues rose 21% to $3.13 billion, while sites revenues grew 15% to $7.73 billion.
The company’s total headcount was 53,546 in the quarter, compared to 54,604 workers for the previous quarter: Google hired 1,807 workers for its core business, but cut about 2,865 jobs at Motorola.
CNBC is reporting that Google requested a T-1 halt for the shares. The company is saying R.R. Donnelley (RRD), now down around 5%, filed earnings without authorization: “”Earlier this morning RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they had filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorization. We have ceased trading on NASDAQ while we work to finalize the document. Once it’s finalized we will release our earnings, resume trading on NASDAQ and hold our earnings call as normal at 1:30PST.”
In addition, the company announced on its blog that it had partnered with Samsung to create the $249 Chromebook laptop: “Starting today, the new Samsung Chromebook is available for pre-order online from Amazon (AMZN), Best Buy (BBY), PC World and other retailers. Next week it will be available for sale from these same online retailers as well as the Google Play store. You can also buy them at over 500 Best Buy stores across the U.S and over 30 PC World and Currys stores in the U.K.”
