Tech giants post strong third-quarter results

Google, IBM and AMD have all posted positive third-quarter financial results, suggesting that the worst of the recession may be over, at least for technology suppliers.

Google posted the best results of the three with revenue of US$5.94bn (A$6.49bn), an increase of seven percent on the same period last year. Profit, excluding stock-based compensation, reached US$1.88bn (A$2.05bn), up from US$1.56bn (A$1.7bn) last year.

The search firm's results also show an improvement in the overall web advertising market. Clicks on ads hosted on Google sites, or those of its partners, increased by 14 per cent since last year. The cost-per-click decreased by six per cent, but this is likely to be down to Google's facing a more competitive marketplace.

IBM, meanwhile, logged a rise in profit in the quarter despite falling sales. The world's largest technology company posted revenue of US$23.6bn (A$25.8bn), down seven percent year on year. Profit rose to US$3.2bn (A$3.5bn), up from US$2.18bn (A$2.38bn) last year.

On a regional basis, EMEA continued to be the hardest hit area for IBM in terms of revenue. In product areas, IBM's best performing offerings were in its middleware portfolio, particularly WebSphere, which helps customers manage business processes.

Outsourcing, software and services were other strong areas, but IBM's consulting division did less well, and the firm's mainframes sales were considerably weak.

Finally, AMD posted a modest profit of US$2m (A$2.18m) even though revenue decreased by 22 percent since last year.

The processor and graphics card vendor said that it is confident in microprocessor and graphic unit shipment growth.