Google: We’ll make money on wireless by 2008

During the company’s quarterly conference call, Google Inc. executives spoke at length about the future of the mobile search space and highlighted areas where the search giant has made heavy investment in wireless.
While Google doesn’t expect any significant revenues from its mobile business until next year, company executives said Google is keenly aware of the substantial growth in mobile search query traffic and the potential for higher revenue from mobile ads.
“It is clear that 2007 will be the year that mobile search query traffic grows substantially,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said during the conference call according to a transcript from SeekingAlpha. “We are making a significant investment in technology around mobile because of the growth rate of mobile and the ultimate scale of that business. You won’t really see its financial impact until ’08.”
Google has inked mobile search deals with China Mobile, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., SK Telecom and Apple Inc. and has also launched mobile applications for Gmail and Google Maps.
Google reported $3.2 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, reflecting a 67 percent growth over the same period a year ago. The search giant beat the market’s expectations once again with total earnings of $1.03 billion, or $3.36 per share. Its total earnings for 2006 were $3.07 billion.