Google, whose shares hit a record of $641.41 a week ago, reported that sales in its third quarter had surged by 57% compared with the period a year ago, and net income by 46%. "We are very pleased with the impressive growth we experienced across our business," said CEO Eric Schmidt, who also told analysts, drily: “It is obvious to us that our model continues to work very well.”

"Our core search advertising business experienced continued momentum driven by growth in monetization and traffic, and we are creating a wider and deeper ads system through our focus on innovation, bringing more ad formats to our advertisers," Schmidt (pictured) explained in a statement accompanying the results. "Our efforts to offer more products and services in international markets as well as effectively grow our technology infrastructure and add to our deep talent base during the quarter helped to deliver growth by enabling Google to reach more users around the world," he continued.

Google reported revenues of $4.23 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, an increase of 57% compared to the third quarter of 2006 and an increase of 9% compared to the second quarter of 2007.

Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $1.25 billion in the third quarter of 2007, or 30% of revenues, compared to $1.21 billion in the second quarter of 2007, or 31% of revenues.

GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2007 was $1.07 billion as compared to $925 million in the second quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP net income was $1.24 billion in the third quarter of 2007, compared to $1.12 billion in the second quarter of 2007.

On a worldwide basis, Google employed 15,916 full-time employees as of September 30, 2007, up from 13,786 full time employees as of June 30, 2007.