Nine acquisitions this year cost Google $164m

Google has spent US$145 million ($146 million) since the beginning of this year acquiring nine companies, and is set for many more in the months to come.

The cost was revealed on Wednesday in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Google has acquired 68 companies since it was founded in 1998, and picked up five companies last month: Episodic, Plink, Agnilux, LabPixies and Bumptop.

The April purchases followed those of Picnik and DocVerse in March, and Aardvark and reMail in February. The company also closed the US$123 million ($139 million) acquisition of video compression firm On2 Technologies in February.

Google has been open about its buying intentions for 2010 and reiterated its plans in the regulatory filing.

"We expect to continue to evaluate and enter into discussions regarding a wide array of potential strategic transactions. In particular, we expect to increase the number of acquisitions we make in 2010 compared to 2009," the firm said.

However, Google's US$750 million (A$554 million) acquisition of AdMob, which was announced in November last year, looks increasingly likely to be challenged by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The acquisition would create the largest mobile phone advertising company in the world, and FTC staff are concerned that the purchase will reduce competition in the market for mobile phone advertising.