Google posts Q1 2015 earnings, revenue up 12% year over year

Just yesterday, Google posted its financial reports for Q1 2015. While overall revenue and net income increased year over year, those numbers would have been much higher had the company’s Nexus program not seen a decline. But before we get into the bad news, let’s talk about the profits Google earned from January through March of this year.

Google earned $17.3 billion this quarter, up 12% from what the company earned Q1 of last year. Net income for Q1 has also risen to $3.58 billion, up from $3.45 billion the year prior. Sites owned by Google generated $11.9 billion, an increase of 14% year over year, making up roughly 68% of the company’s overall revenue.

The always vague ‘other revenues’ portion totaled $1.7 billion in Q1, up 23% year over year, making up roughly 9.8% of its overall earnings. This section includes highly-profitable products on the consumer end, like Google Play and the Nexus program. Oddly enough, the company’s ‘other revenues’ section is down 3% compared to Q4 of 2014, and we have a pretty good idea as to why. As Google CFO Patrick Pichette explained in the Q1 2015 earnings call yesterday, the ‘other revenues’ section declined due to the Nexus program. Pichette explains:

Other revenues grew 23 percent year over year to $1.8 billion, and was down 2 percent quarter over quarter, driven really by year over year growth in the Play Store, offset by decline in Nexus. Year over year it hasn’t been as strong given the strength of the Nexus 7 last year.

As you probably recall, Google released the Nexus 6 ($649) and Nexus 9 ($399) at higher price points than it did with the Nexus 5 ($349) back in 2013. Taking into account that the Nexus 6 launched at a higher price point and is definitely a device meant for a niche market, we’re not surprised that the Nexus program has been losing its steam over the past few months.

Read more: Google reveals Nexus program has “seen a decline” – post by Andrew Grush

Moving right along, Google’s operating costs totaled a massive $6.45 billion, up $5.34 billion year over year. It should be noted that Google hired just about 9,000 new employees this quarter alone, which contributes a lot to that total.

If you’re interested, feel free to check out Google’s full financial report at the source link below.