Google chiefs tweak roles as firm reveals whopping Q4 results

Larry Page will replace Eric Schmidt as Google's chief executive

Google co-founder Larry Page will take over from Eric Schmidt as the search giant's CEO on 4 April.

Schmidt will step aside to become executive chairman, focusing on "deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships", acccording to the company.

Meanwhile, the internet search giant revealed revenues of $8.44bn (£5.3bn) for the Q4 2010, a 26 per cent year-on-year increase.

But revenues from the UK dipped from 12 per cent in Q4 2009 to 10 per cent of the company's total sales, coming in at $878m (£551m).

Google-owned sites generated revenues of $5.67bn (£3.56bn), up 28 per cent from the same period in 2009. The firm has been accused recently of tweaking its search algorithms to favour its own products and services and is being investigated by the EC.

In another change of role, the company announced that co-founder Sergey Brin will work on strategic projects focusing on new products.

On the shifts in responsibilities, Schmidt said: "We've been talking about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making for a long time. By clarifying our individual roles we'll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company."

Ten years ago the situation was reversed when Schmidt took the CEO role from Page to allay fears on Wall Street that the latter was too inexperienced.