Web search leader Google last night posted a surge in quarterly profit as revenue doubled to send its shares up 11 per cent.
The company, which has expanded into e-mail and instant messaging, said it was seeing a "seachange" shift to online marketing from print and broadcast, helping it attract more big companies as advertisers, even in a seasonally slow period.
The shares shot up $32.55 to a new high of $335.75 in after-hours trading as several analysts said they would raise forecasts to justify $400 share price levels.
Google shares had been stuck around the $300 level for most of the past four months as investors waited for evidence that could justify driving the meteoric stock to a higher orbit.
San Jose, California-based Google reported third-quarter net income rose to $381.2 million, or $1.32 per diluted share from $52.0 million, or 19 cents a share a year earlier.
The prior quarter included a non-cash charge of $201.0 million to settle a patent dispute with rival Yahoo.
Surveys have shown Google growing faster than direct rival Yahoo and far faster than the overall market.
Forty-five percent of all Web searches were on Google during September, twice the 23 per cent of searches on Yahoo and four times Microsoft's MSN, according to Nielsen//NetRatings Web data.