Google announces Q3 earnings: $9.72 billion in revenue, $2.73 billion net income, 40 million Google+ users

Google's just announced its third quarter earnings and, as expected, the company's numbers are continuing on the upswing (even beating expectations). That includes $9.72 billion in revenue, which represents a 33 percent jump compared to the third quarter of 2010, along with $2.73 billion in net income, which is up from $2.17 billion a year ago. Somewhat notably, Google also choose to lead off its press release announcing the financial results (included after the break) with the news that Google+ has just passed the 40 million user mark -- the company further notes that "people are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate." There's not a ton of surprises to be found in the results otherwise, although Larry Page and co. sure seem to be busy hiring new folks -- they've brought on 10 percent more employees in the span of three months (for a total of 31,353 full-time employees as of September 30th). The company's earnings call is coming up shortly -- we'll bring you any additional details as they're made available.