Google's parent company Alphabet benefited from a strong online advertising business in the past quarter.
Revenue rose by 15% year-on-year to $80.5 billion, Alphabet announced after the close of trading on Thursday. Analysts had expected an average of only around $79 billion. Profit rose to $23.66 billion from just over $15 billion a year earlier.
The share price jumped by more than 12% at times in after-hours trading. Alphabet announced a dividend of $0.20 per share for the first time - and also held out the prospect of further dividend distributions in the future.
Google's advertising revenues continue to form the basis of its business. They rose from $54.5 billion to $61.66 billion within a year. Google-owned platform YouTube contributed around $8 billion - around 21% more than in the same quarter of the previous year.
The development of Google's advertising business is being monitored very closely. A key question is whether attempts by competitors to use artificial intelligence to display direct answers instead of links will leave a mark on Google's search engine.
In the so-called "Other Bets" - future projects such as self-driving cars or delivery drones - turnover for all companies rose from $288 million to $495 million. The division's operating loss was reduced - from $1.22 billion a year ago to just over $1 billion now.