Page: 'more wood behind fewer arrows' driving Google success
$9 billion buys a lot of bows
Google's Larry Page has declared that a focus on "more wood behind fewer arrows" has helped the company to a record quarterly profit in excess of $9 billion.
Page's quarterly earnings call revealed that the company had made more than £5.57 billion in his first quarter as CEO, after taking the reigns from Eric Schmidt.
"Greater focus has also been another big feature for me this quarter," noted Page. "More wood behind fewer arrows.
"Last month, for example, we announced that we will be closing Google Health and Google PowerMeter.
"We've also done substantial internal work simplifying and streamlining our product lines.
"While much of that work has not yet become visible externally, I am very happy with our progress here."
"Focus and prioritisation are crucial given our amazing opportunities. Indeed I see more opportunities for Google today than ever before. Because believe it or not we are still in the very early stages of what we want to do."
Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
YouTube profits
Page also talked about how the company was looking to monetise high-profile products like YouTube, Chrome and the new Google+.
"People rightly ask 'how we will monetise these businesses?' And of course I understand the need to balance the short term with the longer term needs because our revenues and growth serve as the engine that funds our innovation.
"But our emerging high usage products can generate huge new businesses for Google in the long run, just like search and we have tons of experience monetising successful products over time.
"Well run technology businesses with tremendous consumer usage make a lot of money over the long term."
Three areas
Page went on to talk about splitting the company's properties into three areas, the core ads product that brings in the lion's share of the money, high consumer success stories like Android, Chrome and YouTube where Google is investing…in order to optimise their long-term success and new products like Google+ and Local.
"We are investing in them to drive innovation and adoption," added Page.
"Overall, we are focused on long term absolute profit and growth, as we have always been - and I will continue the tight financial management we have had in the last two years, even as we are making significant investments in our future."
Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content. After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.