Good news from Google. Revenue up, Margins up, Ad rates holding-ish. It's clear - more advertising is going digital.

Google's core revenue is up and beats analysts expectations. Its shares have increased by +5% and notably its Ad rates, although a slight fall, seem to be "holding". Good news.

A 9.83 billion usd in revenue in the 4th quarter is up from 8.13 billion usd last year, growing both their core business and their margins - the sweetest thing a business can do. A +23% growth in international revenues too with cost-per-click (CPC) rates down only 6% whereas it had previously been on a bigger slide.

The 4th quarter is a critical, a seasonal time for Ad sales (Christmas).

One of the reasons is the growth in mobile search where users access Google by smartphone and those CPC rates are always lower. So if you like, the averages are down because of "blended product". Or in other words, an increase in its lower-cost product brings the overall price down.

But a "hold" on Ad rates is good news for the Ad community - things may be bottoming out. Clearly too, there's increased demand for Google Advertising and so, one might assume, more demand in general. It's clear - more Advertising is going digital.

Equally too, it must be remembered that Google hasn't yet seen the full force of the recent launch of Facebook Search which has to eat into their business. Google's Motorola Mobility acquisition too, hasn't paid dividends showing ongoing losses of 353 million usd in this quarter. But they've indicated that this is now a focus to turnaround.

It has already sold the Motorola set-top TV business for just over 2 billion usd.

All in all, encouraging numbers not just for Google, but for the trade itself. They are market leader and so tend to show the trend. And this trend is up.

It came too on the day that RIM who owns Blackberry Crackberry, say that they'll launch their new phone on January 30th. And that, in contrast to Google, is really make or break time.

But this is all good.