Google again delivered above expectations by reporting pre-tax profits up 41.6% to $1.47bn (£719.8m) and turnover up 57% to $4.43bn (£2.17bn) in the three months ending 30 September.
Google’s UK business remains a key part of the overall operation, posting revenues of $661m during the quarter – 16% of overall revenue, as it was in Q3 2006.
Meanwhile, pre-tax profit at Yahoo! was $151m (£74.2m) during Q3 2007, down 5% from the same period in 2006.
Following the performance dip, chief executive and co-founder Jerry Yang said Yahoo! would now focus on three key strands to improve performance: becoming the starting point for consumers using the internet, to be the “must buy” for advertisers and to deliver open platforms that will attract the most developers as key “multi-year” objectives.
Market watchers also expect Yahoo! to deal with the growing threat to its traditional area of online dominance – display advertising, which some believe is under threat from the potential takeover of DoubleClick by Google.
The European Commission is continuing to seek industry opinion on the proposed takeover and could open a more detailed investigation, which could last for 90 days.
Publicly, Yahoo! would only comment with a short statement signalling its opposition to the deal.
“Combining Google’s search business with DoubleClick’s ad technology will strengthen Google’s dominant position in Europe,” said the statement.
“The competitive landscape for online advertising will be negatively impacted.
“The end result will be higher prices for internet publishers and advertisers and less choice for European consumers.”
Yahoo!’s UK office, meanwhile, is seeking a replacement for Blake Chandlee, the firm’s former commercial director, who left the firm earlier this month to set up a Facebook office in the UK.
Yahoo! has placed its vice- president of sales for Europe Javier Zapatero in temporary charge of media sales in the UK, along with vice-president for northern Europe Glen Drury.
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