Google reported earnings that missed Wall Street expectations on Thursday, though core revenue in its Internet business rose 22 percent. Shares whipsawed in after-hours trading.
The search giant posted adjusted earnings of $12.01 per share on revenue of $16.86 billion. Analysts expected the company to report earnings excluding items of $12.20 a share on $16.75 billion in revenue according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
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"Core" revenues for Google's business totaled $15.72 billion, up 22 percent on a year earlier. Revenue at the Motorola segment were $1.24 billion, down from $1.51 billion a year earlier.
A bicyclist rides his bike past a Google Inc. sign at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Paid clicks on Google's online ads jumped 31 percent year-on-year, but the average cost per click that marketers paid Google declined 11 percent.
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On Wednesday evening, Google said it is selling Motorola's smartphone business to Lenovo for $2.9 billion. The deal will rid Google of a financial headache that has plagued the Internet company since buying Motorola Mobility for $12.4 billion in 2012. Motorola has lost nearly $2 billion since Google took over, while trimming its workforce from 20,000 to 3,800.
The Motorola unit posted an operating loss of another $384 million in the fourth quarter.
(Read more: Lenovo-GOOG deal may raise spy concerns)
The company also said Thursday its board had approved the long-awaited issue of Class C shares, which is part of the company's plan to split its stock.
The split is scheduled to occur April 2. It had been delayed because some Google shareholders feared it would unfairly benefit co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Owners of Class A stock will get an equal number of Class C shares. Initially, value of the current stock will be divided equally between the two types, but they will then trade separately.
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–By CNBC.com. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
