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Google's surprise results stuns Wall Street

US-GOOGLE-RESULTS:Google's surprise results stuns Wall Street

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc stunned Wall Street on Thursday with a significant miss on both revenue and earnings, wiping 9 percent off the market value of the Internet search and advertising leader.

The company, which recently overtook Microsoft Corp to become the second-largest U.S. technology company by capitalization, surprised investors by releasing its results ahead of the market close, perhaps inadvertently.

Google, which has been struggling to turn around a loss-making Motorola Mobility it bought for $12.5 billion, reported a 20 percent dive in net income to $2.18 billion. Excluding certain items, it earned $9.03 a share, vastly underperforming the $10.65 analysts had expected, on average.

It reported net revenue - excluding traffic acquisition costs - of $11.3 billion for the third quarter, below Wall Street's expectations for about $11.9 billion.

The surprise announcement, which had been expected after the market close, helped push its shares down 9 percent to $687.30.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan in San Francisco; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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