SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Google Inc. on Thursday posted a double-digit increase of sales in the most recent quarter, which however was not as strong as some analysts had expected.

The company's shares fell nearly 5 percent in late trading after the results were announced.

Google reported revenues of 6.67 billion U.S. dollars for the last three months of 2009, up 17 percent compared to the same period a year earlier and also representing an increase of 12 percent over the previous quarter.

Net income was 1.97 billion dollars, compared to 382 million dollars in the year-ago quarter when the company took charges of 1. 09 billion dollars related to its investments.

"Google had a strong fourth quarter, with 17 percent year over year revenue growth," Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, said in a statement.

"Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year," he added.