The world's largest web company generated revenues of $5.51bn and net income of $1.42bn in the quarter, mainly driven by strong search growth from its own sites. While still up on Q1 2008, it equates to a 3% drop on the fourth quarter of 2008.
The company's AdSense initiative, which generates advertising revenue from third party sites, was down 3% on the previous quarter, contributing $1.64bn, or 30%, to total revenues.
UK operations were among the hardest hit, with revenues of $733m representing 13% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2009. This has dropped from 15% in the first quarter of 2008 but is up from 12% in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The company's commitment to expanding its emerging businesses and international footprint has also started to become apparent; since the first quarter of 2008 the company now generates more of its revenues (52%) outside the US.
This compares to an equal 50/50 split this time last year.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, called it "a good quarter" in the current circumstances which underlines "the resilience" of the company's business model and the "ongoing potential" of the web.
However, the chief executive admitted on a conference call the company could not escape from the contracting advertising market: "We're still basically in uncharted territory. Google is absolutely feeling the impact," he said.
"Users are still searching but they're buying less. Ultimately, what that really means is the ads are converting less."
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