NEW YORK: Internet search giant Google reported a 26 per cent increase in third-quarter earnings on Thursday, beating the expectations of Wall Street analysts despite the weakening US economy.

Net profit rose 26 per cent in the third-quarter from the same period last year to 1.35 billion dollars while revenue was up 31 per cent at 5.54 billion dollars, the Mountain View, California-based company said in a statement.

Google reported earnings per share of 4.92 dollars, more than the forecast of 4.76 dollars per share.

"We had a good third quarter with strong traffic and revenue growth across all of our major geographies thanks to the underlying strength of our core search and ads business," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said.

"While we are realistic about the poor state of the global economy, we will continue to manage Google for the long term, driving improvements to search and ads, while also investing in future growth areas such as enterprise, mobile, and display," Schmidt added.

Google's share price soared 8.16 per cent in after-hours trading in New York to 381.83 dollars after having gained 4.08 per cent during the day on Wall Street.

- AFP/yt