I've been quite busy with schoolwork, "work" work, and learning to code, so forgive me for posting so sporadically. I may not be posting very often, but I've still been consuming all of the latest tech news as vigorously as ever, so all is dandy. Anyway, that's enough of my solipsism. This week we have a small treat from Google, with their 2014 Quarter 1 results. Below is a transcribed (and beautified) income statement. Percentages are mine.

Google Q1 2014 Income Statement. Q1 2013 included for comparison. - Items highlighted in red reduce net income. - Items highlighted in green increase net income.- Items in black are totals. — Google Q1 2014 Income Statement. Q1 2013 included for comparison.
- Items highlighted in red reduce net income.
- Items highlighted in green increase net income.
- Items in black are totals.

Some things of particular interest:

Revenues grew healthily, despite what Wall Street skeptics will say. As many analysts have noted, Google revenues closely follow the amount of Google users (due to advertising). For revenues to continue growing, the user base has to expand. The U.S. is saturated already (pretty much everybody is a Google user), so revenue growth will either have to come from 1) international users, or 2) other ways of monetizing current users. It's also worth noting that international users are less profitable than U.S. ones.
For every dollar earned, Google spends $0.14 on Research & Development. Google Glass, Google Maps, self driving cars, Android, Google TV, I can go on with other projects Google is involved in. The good part is that they are constantly innovating. The bad is that many, no - most products never leave the lab. Overall, it's great to see a large company spending so much on research and innovation. Looks like it's not stopping. Google spent 31.5% more on R&D this Q1 compared to last year.
Large increase in General & Administrative costs. Are they hiring up? Becoming larger and thus less efficient? Hard to say, but the increase is there and worth pointing out.
Net Income rose by 3.17%. Not bad, but not exactly stellar performance either. Considering revenues rose 19%, I would like to see net income follow revenue growth more closely. Trim down the fat (SG&A expenses). That said, technology companies are rarely efficient, so this is nothing to worry about, but again, worth pointing out.

That's all for now. In the future, I would like to make some comparisons over a longer time period (10 years), but for now, this will do. As always, you can contact me here (I don't bite) or in the comment section below.