Google’s Q2 Revenue: Only Up 58%? Losers.

Google Q2 earnings and income reports are in, disappointing Wall Street with only 58% growth YOY in revenue, 28.3% growth YOY in profits. I’m not kidding about Wall Street being disappointed. According to CNET, Google’s stock fell 7% in after-hours training, presumably because they only grew 28%.

Ten guesses what the top story on Yahoo Finance was when I just went to look at stocks.

That AP story reports:

The second quarter represented the first time that Google’s year-over-year profit hasn’t improved by at least 60 percent since the company went public in August 2004. What’s more, it’s just the second time Google’s earnings have fallen below analyst estimates in its 12 quarters as a public company.

Okay, there’s a point to be made there. Do we need another math lesson here? When you have a really big number (such as a very high revenue), it’s harder and harder to maintain a high growth rate, because the amount you have to grow to keep up gets bigger every quarter.

And $3.87 billion, Google’s total revenue, is a pretty big number. “Excluding traffic acquisition costs, or commission paid to content partners,” says CNET, “Revenue was $2.72 billion, greater than the $2.68 billion analysts were expecting.” ($1.15 billion went to traffic acquisition costs, in case you were wondering.)

So, wait… Google grows almost 30%, exceeds your expectations and . . . their stock price drops $40 in a matter of hours? It really is lonely at the top.

Read the official release here.